Spell casting while wounded/ Endurance of the Beserker

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

A bit of background. There are four magi trapped in a rego, these being the magi who were participating in a Wizards Communion that was Opening an Intangible Tunnel whose parma was not high enough to resist the magic grabbing them. Two of them are player characters, two of them are one shot magi which I created so everyone would have someone to play.

They were attacked by a group of wolf skinchangers. Three of the four magi were wounded, two of them very badly. One of the badly wounded ones was the Creo Corpus Tremere magi which I had specifically added to the group to provide healing. At the end of the fight he had three heavy wounds and an incapacitating wound. Through some good luck, the incapacitating wound eased to a heavy for a total -20 penalty. There is the Bjorner PC, who took 3 medium wounds and then three light wounds for a total penalty of -12. Then there is the Flambeau whose good armor meant he only took 3 light wounds. Finally, the Meritia created a glamour of a dome of diamond that covered her, and emerged unscathed.

Now, as I read the rules, you can't cast magic that requires fatigue if you have any wound penalty. But the Flambeau has a touch range, sun duration version of Endurance of the Beserker. With his casting total, the aura modifier and the wound penalty, whether casting this spell costs fatigue is iffy. If it does cost fatigue, what happens? Does one of the light wounds become medium? Does the spell fail and the light wound became medium? Do I say, "No, can't do that right now, try again later?"

Now, supposing the Endurance of the Beserker effect goes off. No one has Churgery, or the spell Bind Wounds. The Flambeau could spont Bind Wounds fairly easly, but as something that causes a fatigue level, does this cause one of his wounds to worsen? Or does the effect of the spell keep the wound from worsening?

2

Before, I used to think like you.

Then a player said to me: it makes no sense if you can't do intentionnaly fatiguing (spontaneous) magic, but can fail by less than 10 the target level of a formulaic, cast it and have 1 level of fatigue.

And he pointed to me that what was logic was: you can cast spontaneous magic or formulaic magic. But if you are wounded, you have to do an immediate recovery check roll when you do have a fatigue level.

This exactly made the rules more coherent, and I adopted this reasonment immediatly.

It's more logical, and is IMO a valid interpretation of raw. Since the "what you can / can't do" list is precisely after the statement that "if you overdo, you have to check for recovery".

3

That sounds like it can be abused. I don't want to waste vis or wait a season to recover so I'll just have my colleague cast a big but short term recovery booster spell then start casting fatiguing sponts.

4

Yeah. And then you botches and dies.

There are rules, and there are exploits. Just hope for your luck.

5

The flambeau casts the spell and makes recovery roll (one for each wound) for exceeding limits of his wounds. If he failed, his wounds get worse so he could end up with 3 medium wounds but spell went off with the -3 penalty. Now he can ignore wound penalties for a time and cast Bind wounds upon the healer specialist. the healer specialist then can cast healing spells on everyone else until the bind wound stops working.

6

The wound can only become WORSE or remain stable. There, abuse problem solved. :slight_smile: It might even be the RAW (no book here to check).

Xavi

7

You are right.

8

Yup, cant get better from a forced roll unless i really misrecall badly.

9

Exactly.

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