Is the expenditure of a Long-Term Fatigue level a cost or is it a consequence of casting a ritual, when Casting total - Spell level is 0 or higher?
My question relates to Magi that have been Transformed (and acquire the No Fatigue quality) or who are Becoming Faerie. Are they now prohibited from casting Rituals? Or do they cast them without any problems, as long as they meet the "Casting total - Spell level is 0 or higher" threshold?
And yes, I know such Magi can spend Confidence in place of Fatigue levels. So do they now have to spend Confidence in every Ritual?
That's a good question. When ArM5 was written, HoH:MC Becoming or RoP:M No Fatigue did not exist.
So for anything from the books, you need to look rather far. There is
This refers to the Fatigue level loss due to Faerie Methods as additional costs, so the Fatigue level loss from ArM5 p.81 box Ritual Magic can be understood as costs, too, without overly stirring the mulligan.
Anyway, best discuss and decide this with your troupe.
I don't think it's very clear in ArM5 itself. However, TMRE and HoH:TL make the difference a lot clearer, especially TMRE:
This is saying that you lose the Fatigue to Ritual casting due to it being exhausting. While not as solid as the next, it is a good indicator.
Withstand Casting actually makes the point that it cannot be used to reduce Fatigue loss that is used to boost a spell, though it makes these points about other Virtues as opposed to Ritual casting. Meanwhile it can be used with regular Formulaic or Ritual spells. That very strongly implies that the Fatigue loss due to casting totals for Formulaic and Ritual spells is simply due to exhaustion and is not required to power the spell. However, it is only a strong implication, as this Virtue cannot drop the loss to 0, so you might argue some is needed. As a counter to that, though, Fatigue is clearly not needed to power Formulaic spells and the limit of not dropping the loss to 0 applies to Formulaic spells as well, so this limit is different than the statement about Fatigue loss to power spells.
So it seems most consistent if the Fatigue loss is just from exhaustion and is not actually necessary.
On a side note, if you pick up a non-faerie familiar after being a true faerie via Becoming, you can spend Might Pool/5 in place of a Fatigue level. It takes looking in a few spots to see that this is the case, but it does provide another method.
Thank you all for your responses. I had hoped I had missed a place where it was explicitly laid out, but it seems that is not to be.
Looking at the Exertion rules in the Core Book, these only apply to Combat maneuvers and Spontaneous spells. Which to me seems to imply that Ritual fatigue is a consequence and not a cost.
But One Shot presents a passage that implies otherwise.
Also, in TM:RE, Living Ghosts actually have Fatigue, which they must spend when called for from amongst other activities, spellcasting. The section on Daimonic Magi in TM:RE also directly suggests that Ritual fatigue loss is an "expenditure". Of course, TM:RE is not fully synched with books that came out later (most notably RoP:M).
On the other hand, the author of the Merinita section of HoH:MC did not consider this to be an issue, "...and cannot exert herself as others do, either in combat or to cast spontaneous spells, though she may simulate this exertion by spending a Confidence Point." No mention of Ritual spells when he 's specifically referring to Fatigue.
callen, I did not know that a Magus who had undergone Becoming, bound to a non-faerie familiar, might spend Might herself to do this. A Faerie familiar can, at her magus's bidding, it is clearly spelled out in HoH:MC, and is an obvious way around this perceived problem (git your familiar to pay for itself, what good is it otherwise! ). Daimonic Magi in TM:RE may indeed do this "...(In this , it is similar to a faerie)...", is this what you refer to?
On a related note, can you bind a creature with Faerie Chains of the Familiar Slave while you already have a bound Familiar? Can you do it while you have another creature under this spell? If so, can you then invent a version with Target:Group/Room, (Circle might be dangerous unless the targets are unconscious or within another ward)?
Except that Ritual magic has a Vis cost, so stating there is more than this cost does not imply much about the Fatigue. Were there no Vis cost, then we could infer that there must be some cost and so the Fatigue is likely it, but that is not the case. In fact, maybe the opposite, since losing Fatigue for the Ritual does not seem to suffice for paying the Faerie Method cost and so does not seem to be paying a cost since that cost must still be payed.
I'll have to look at those others in TMRE. I do know they're already problematic because spirits don't can't fatigue, though I believe the same book that makes that rule also breaks it.
Withstand Casting explicitly cannot be used in case of casting a ritual
, which is the case of the OP we are discussing here.
Indeed.
This reduces your argument to stating, that the case of the OP is treated similar to others by the specific Virtue Withstand Casting. Which of course doesn't make them the same.
That Fatigue level lost of the OP -
is actually very resilient. No matter whether you mastered the ritual, have a Ritual Casting Total exceeding its level by many magnitudes, have the Virtue Withstand Casting (TMRE p.36), have the Mercurian Magic (ArM5 p.46) Virtue, can use the Virtue Mystical Choreography (HoH:S p.56) and a prepared space to reduce ritual casting time to one minute per magnitude, or any other - you still need to expend that Fatigue level. Stalwart Casting (HoH: TL p.100) mastery does only reduce it from long-term fatigue to normal fatigue, while it prevents all fatigue loss from low casting totals for non-ritual formulaic spells.
So is there any documented way to get rid of that specific Fatigue level loss at all? I wouldn't know it. Which makes it appear to be that required minimal exertion to cast a ritual at all.
Ignes.Festivus is still best advised to bring this topic to his troupe.
Do you mean "explicitly can't be used to reduce the fatigue from a ritual to 0"? Because I'm pretty sure it does work on ritual fatigue over that - it's originally a Mercurian ability after all, and the text talks about the virtue working to offset long-term fatigue.
If you do mean "explicitly cannot be used in case of casting a ritual", can you give me a reference?
First, that's not what "explicit" means. It doesn't say that explicitly. The only statements about Casting Totals in the Virtue refer to other things. And, if you read more carefully, it does not even implicitly say that at all. For instance, let's say you have Vulnerable Casting (3) and Withstand Casting (4) and you get a Casting Total 10 higher than the Spell Level. You should lose 4 Long-Term Fatigue Levels due to the Casting Total and Vulnerable Casting, but Withstand Casting reduces it to 1 Long-Term Fatigue Level.
The point of bringing up Withstand Casting is that it shows something about mitigation of the Fatigue loss, and I addressed that issue with it, which I'm pretty sure you read because you refer to it.
What it says is that the argument that Withstand Casting cannot remove the last Fatigue level of loss because that Fatigue level is needed to power a spell is a false argument. Why? Because we know that is not the case with Formulaic magic and this rule is the same for Formulaic magic. It doesn't lock it in one way or another, as I said; it just invalidates one small argument against the Fatigue loss being a cost instead of a result.
You do realize that your argument is also stating that faeries (for whom the rule is "they lack the ability to become fatigued" cannot, for example, hike all day under a hot sun nor run between cities to carry a message, right? Is that what you really meant? Why is this? Because there is no mitigation given in the rules:
Thus it comes to the same point. If the Fatigue loss to the Ritual is because it is tiring, then No Fatigue and the like don't prevent the Ritual magic. If the Fatigue loss is to power it at all, then you need to supply the energy somehow. But at least we can see that a lack of statements for mitigation outside of specifics for faeries and No Fatigue do not imply that lacking Fatigue stops it.
One Shot was making a single sentence out of that, the quote, and the next line. The statement is completely incorrect, as I pointed out. But it was being argued with a qualifier, not only the part of the sentence you quoted. I had to go back and reread the same thing to read it properly because how the forum formats quotes messes with reading the sentence.
The rule applies in a bunch of ways, several of which are spelled out explicitly in that block and several that are not. Regardless of what it spelled out right there, the rule is "in exactly the same way as a faerie."
The point is, that certain activities - like fatiguing spontaneous casting from ArM5 p.83 Spontaneous Magic and ArM5 p.173 Exertion in combat - are beyond the capability of beings without Fatigue levels due do RoP:M No Fatigue or HoH:MC Becoming: just because, as the OP put it, the Fatigue levels are a cost in this case, not just consequences.
And that minimal exertion to cast a ritual - because it apparently cannot be removed by concerted use of all the applicable Virtues - looks also very much like such a cost. This is not a proof, of course. Therefore my recommendation to ask the troupe.
But by that very reasoning ("apparently cannot be removed by concerted use of all the applicable Virtues"), Long-Term Fatigue loss to traveling all day under the hot sun or running between the cities are also costs, not consequences. If they are costs, then faeries can't pay them (aside from the exceptions like those with Becoming).
That was my point there. If the argument is that not finding (non-faerie/non-No Fatigue) stuff to mitigate it means cost instead of consequence, then you end up with something nonsensical (specifically, contradictory to what some faeries are described as doing). That is the essence of proof by contradiction. This doesn't say the Fatigue loss for Ritual spells is a consequence, only that the argument that it must be a cost because you cannot find (non-faerie/non-No Fatigue) mitigating factors is contradictory and thus invalid.
I see and call the strawman. My point is, that ArM5 rules took care not to remove that fatiguing exertion for ritual casting completely.
But the strawman even has a construction flaw: the Immunities (ArM5 p.43 and p.44, but also others spread over the books) are Virtues that can allow a man to travel all the day under the hot sun without getting fatigued.
If you allow that, then by that same argument I can take Greater/Lesser Immunity to performing Ritual magic. Therefore there is a Virtue that prevents you from losing Fatigue and taking Wounds when casting Ritual magic. Therefore it is preventable and is not a cost. Or would you rather drop the whole Greater/Lesser Immunity bit?
Of course, there is still the question of poor phrasing in the immunity preventing you from doing the very thing you want to do, too, but let's leave that aside as it can be dealt with.
In the same way that you could take it for running/hiking, yup. If you cease to qualify these as hazards, then you cannot. But by the descriptions in the rules casting Ritual magic is more hazardous than is running/hiking.
). Daimonic Magi in TM:RE may indeed do this "...(In this , it is similar to a faerie)...", is this what you refer to?