I dislike the idea for 5 xp a character can eliminate the chance of catastrophic failure. Take casting a 9th magnitude AoH as an example. No one casts an AoH, or any ritual for that matter, in a stressful environment. So rituals, according to page 86 will always be a stress die without risk of botch. It is cheap and seems to fly in the face of the rules and several virtues and te familiar bond that reduce botch dice. Why should they exist?
Returns to the concept of a Quality dice vs a Normal vs Stress dice. Fair.
My interpretation is that its a typo and rituals are botchy.
Agree totally. Rituals should have the botch as an inherent risk. That said, the 5xp only removes 1 botch dice, not all the botch dice rolled. I still play a dice for every magnitude, so a 9th mag is rolling at least 10 dice.
Yup I know, and we're probably meant to stay within RAW for most forum discussions. On this one though I'm happier ignoring that part of the RAW.
Hi,
why do you think it is cheap to master a single ritual for 5 exp, so you can cast it at leisure without the risk of about a 1 in 10 catastrophic failure, very likely leading into twilight? In terms of time or apprenticeship XP, it tends to means doubling the ritual's cost.
I would indeed think that mastering rituals for that purpose is a very adequate practice, to the contrary. And it is plain and simple by the rules, as written and - to my understanding - as intended, too.
(1) The only stressful thing in casting rituals at leisure is the amount of Vis, or a surrounding foreign Aura.
(2) Mastering a spell removes the chance to botch it because of use of Vis, or of a foreign Aura - likely because neither Vis nor Aura disturb you when executing your well understood and practiced routine.
So when casting a mastered ritual and taking your time, it is both fully intuitive and by the rules that you do not need to roll botch dice.
Cheers
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House rules and what not are discussed all the time. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.
Because it is cheap? Tell me how many times a character, who has spent 5 xp to master a ritual spell, has then cast the spell with a risk of a botch? It just doesn't happen. No one casts a ritual in combat, you can't, it takes too long. So, essentially, the RAW states that you always[1] cast rituals with the benefits of a stress die, but none of the risks for a mere 5 xp. It is not intuitive, if it were, intuitive then it would follow that # of pawns of Vis - mastery score - cord modifiers - virtues modifiers= # of botch dice. That is intuitive.
Please note, you have to take your time with a ritual, you have no choice, it takes 15 minutes per magnitude, period.
Emphasis mine. This seems fairly straightforward to me.
Tell me, how many times a character, who has spent 5 xp to master a normal formulaic spell, has then cast the spell at leisure in a foreign aura and/or using Vis with the risk of a botch?
Is your argument the following: Because casting ritual spells at all is already very much restricted anyway, improving their casting should be some ten or more times more expensive than for normal formulaic spells?
In that case, please allow me to differ. I am quite happy with the RAW here. Indeed I feel it is necessary to make routine Rituals like AotH viable in a longer running campaign.
Cheers
Amul quoted it all.
By the RAW, Rituals are always stress (p81), and always incurr at least 1 botch dice per pawn (p83).
It isn't "rituals are always stress, save when mastered", or "1 botch per pawn, save when mastered, in which case it's 0"
People sometimes complain about Mastery being useless for rituals. Well, it isn't, and here's why. Most mastery special abilities may not be useful, but the botch reduction thingie sure is.
This also means that Mercurian Magi are a great boon to the order, due to their ability to use less vis: Less vis => less botch dices.
Your not answering my question, or even the question posted. There are multiple paths to viability. A ritual, by the fact that it is a ritual, cannot and will not be cast during any stressful situation. Ever. Therefore the rules for spell mastery give all rituals a pass at botches by spending a measly 5 xp. I find that to be contrary to the spirit of the rules. On one hand imposing a chance of botch for commonly cast rituals like AoH is pretty high and on the other hand you can avoid it entirely by spending a measly 5 xp. Seems like a huge gap and there are no cases that are in the middle.
Not quite all. The discussion also needs to include the last sentence on page 86, and is what brings the discussion here.
I personally think this is a throw-away sentence, as it seems to suggest far more than the authors intended, at least given all the paths towards reducing botch dice that have been incorporated in the rules.
Yes, but given the quite specific sentences on rituals, and the fact that rituals, formulaic spells, and spontaneous magic are quite different, this, IMO, applies only to formulaic spells (note that you can't master spontaneous magic).
As it is, someone casting a lvl 30 Aegis has 6 botch dices from vis alone (and I see no other sources of botches for him).
A mercurian lowers this to 3.
A familiar also helps a lot (cautious sorcerer too, but I'll discard it), so it's not very hard to avoid botch dices
With a good familiar, this means that most magi can get by with a Mastery 03 for a lvl 30 Ritual. For stronger Rituals, you need either to get serious about mastery, or be a Mercurian.
Which means Mercurians are the prime casters of big rituals. Which, IMO, is quite fine.
I think that you can Master Ritual Spells, but only by the bonus to Casting and some specialities.
If that was true, why does it say "For every pawn of vis used, the maga must roll an extra botch die IF the casting roll is stress and comes up a zero"?
The quote clearly says that rituals are NOT automatically stress rolls. And if there´s no errata about this, pg 81 and 83 are mutually exclusive about this.
Otherwise the "is stress (and)" shouldn´t be there.
I searched it and all the phrases are true, you ever roll one stress die casting Ritual Magic, but nothing prevent abut master ritual spells, they are first formulaic spells...
Maybe because the paragraph is not called "Rituals" but "Using Raw Vis" and that you're not limited to Rituals for this?
That is, when using raw vis, for every pawn used, you roll an extra botch die IF the roll is stress and you come up a 0 (p83)
Formulaic spells are not always stress, so you don't always roll extra botch dies when using raw vis.
Ritual spells are always stress, so you always roll extra botch dies when using raw vis.
You're the only one seeing a contradiction here, this is perfectly clear
Mario: No. Ritual Magic is no more formulaic magic than spontaneous magic is. These are the 3 types of magic available to the magi, which is why it's called "xxx magic"
I agree with you. I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here.
The problem, is that as written, since Spell Mastery is covered after describing ritual magic, spell mastery rules appear to apply to both formulaic and ritual spells, without any clear distinction. Those who advocate for ritual spells that have been mastered to a score of 1 are hung up on the sentence below and use it as the basis for their argument.
So, while it may be clear (based on Mercurian, Cautious Sorcerer, and multiple levels of mastery subtracting botch dice) that the authors had considered the total number of botch dice for casting rituals an issue and never intended a mastery score of 1 to allow ritual spells to be cast without the risk of botching, that stance is an inference, and not a hard and fast reading of the rules. If the sentence were written as so: "Mastered formulaic spells are always cast with a stress die..." I would have no problem. As written, it appears to indicate any spell which is mastered, which includes ritual spells.
First off, that a stress die is used does not automatically mean botch dice. There are many places in the books where a stress die is used but there are no botch dice.
Level of spell dispelled with unraveling form of XXX spells
Aging
Mastered spells where mastery+cautious sorcerer totally negates them.
I think the line on p86 makes a lot of sense to completely negate botch dice for rituals, especially aegis of the hearth. There should not be 1 aegis botch per tribunal every year or every other year. Mastery of the aegis prevents it. Thnk about it, 6-10 covenants per tribunal, odds are a 0 every year or every other year and then min 5 botch dice (for weakest) and a lot more for higher ones. A lot of other year long spells that really make sense (bountiful harvest: 8 botch dice) wouldn't be used much either.
The Mercurian vs not mercurian is more that you could get a level 4 aegis for 4 vis rather than 8. That is a huge benefit. That you have half botch dice even when ritual isn't matered. That a rook of corpus is 10 spells to close light wounds, not 2.
sometimes you do need to cast even a mastered ritual under stress because someone is trying to disturb you or needs to be done in foreign aura with enemies possibly arriving any minute to stop you (from mundanes, to demon, to faeries, etc). You still have to take the season to master it (it does make flawless magic a little nicer). It also comes with free Wizard communion spells and bonuses when casting wizard communion.
So the rules on p81 and 83 give the normal number of botch die (as does the foreign aura from whatever page it is) but mastery in calm situation negates them
I will state that I would not want any character that I play being hte one that knows and casts aegis of the hearth in a saga where this is house ruled to not be allowed.
I'll stipiulate the stress die does not automatically mean botch dice, when taken in the context of mastered spells.
The question I've been asking, and which no one has answered: is under what circumstanes will a casterl cast a ritual spell in a stressful environment? IMO, such an occurrence will never happen, can't actually happen, based on the nature of the game. For that reason, I think the line on page 86, negating botch dice entirely for rituals goes to far, because it will always negate the botch dice, for any reason, for a mere 5 XP.
The result, is that you have an SG/player "discussion" that resembles something like the following:
SG: It's a stress die, you rolled a 0, roll 10 botch dice because of all the vis.
Player: It's mastered, and I'm relaxed.
SG: No you aren't.
Player: Of course I am, I wouldn't cast this spell in a stressful situation.
SG: :-/
Put yourself in the SG's shoes, and honestly think about when players will cast rituals in stressful situations.