Spell Mastery and Ritual Spells

Seems this is going around in circles. IMS and with how I read the rules a ritual can very much be cast relaxed, just like formulaics. That means you get a stress die, with no botch dice. But if the ritual isn't Mastered you then get one extra botch die for each pawn of vis (and I think for every unfriendly aura, but that might be a house rule). Normally resulting in rather a lot of botch dice.

If you have the ritual Mastered the botch dice for using vis and foreign auras are eliminated.

Here is something might make things understanding and how I look at it.

Standard botch mechanics is a die that explodes on a 1 and has chance to botch on a 0 with number of botch depending on circumstance (default 1 but foreign aura/vis, high stress vs some stress, virtues, mastery, etc can modify.). The concept of the stress die is that you can succeed spectacularly and you can also have your hand slip and botch. Its label is deception. It probably should be called Exploding die or Risk Die.

In certain circumstances, you roll stress without any chance of botching. Some of these explicit cases including aging rolls, strength of the effect of certain PeVi spells, mastered spells.

In certain circumstances you roll with greater than normal. Stress can determine the number of botch dice that you have. If you are doing a ritual while your grogs are defending the doors to the building you are in to keep people out while you finish, you will probably have +2-3 botch more than the standard 1 + x for vis + y for aura.

So the fact that something is stress die does not inherently mean under stress.

This is just to establish that just because something uses a stress die does not mean it is automatically stressful. It is important to understand that concept for this argument.
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Rituals spells because of their complex nature and many components have a risk of a botch. Even if you are totally calm and relaxed, your hand can slip. It is not a factor of being under stress, it is a matter that because of the complexity, there is greater risk (understood or not) in casting it. I type at about 50-60 words per minute with few errors when I am in calm situation and get going in my flow but there is a chance my finger slips and I mistype a word. When typing, this is trivial, when casting a spell with vis, I could see how this could be very explosive if it was not correctable or adjusted for.

It is not that I am under stress, it is that precision with complexity is important and slight changes in that precision can get better results than normal or explosing messup.

This is what gives the ritual its stress die and extra botch dice for foreign aura/vis.

Mastery is just that, you have mastered the spell. You have a trained, innate, muscle memory experience with the rituals (or formulaic spell) that if there are no distractions, you will not have any disasters. You might not be so perfect as to get spectacular results but everything will be close to right.

Cooking is example, there are some recipes that I have done over and over for years that the final result is always tasty even if it isn't always perfect (a few minutes off in cooking, spice was off 1/4 pinch) but it will never come out tasting horrible. Until I master a recipe, there are chances of major mistakes, but one I have, I get it right every time unless there is a distraction or stress (phone rings, knock at the door etc).

This is why Rituals (which are like formulaic spells outside the explicit changes like die or amount of fatigue (hey, any spell that is at least 1 hour to cast should impose minimum level of fatigue) use stress die when cast normally and the sentence about no botch dice when mastered and calm applies.

I don't expect this will say anyone fixed in their view on the matter to one side or the other. This is just explanation of how I see it. Once you get off the fixation that 'stress' in the title of the mechanic means it is stress, suddenly a world of interpretation opens up.

As I said, it does not make sense that authors of the game intended for Aegis of the hearth to be major yearly botch chance.

Except no one but you has insisted that Mastery equals relaxed. Which goes back to the strawman.

Are you going to tell me that you have never played in games with the same system but different house rules?

Again, no one but you has said that mastery equals relaxed except to support your strawman argument. If you can not expect that an SG can make a call on what is a relaxed situation and what is not then how can you play Ars when most of the rules are up to the SG and troupe? So please stop with the absurd examples that you insist will happen because SGs can not reasonably decide if a situation is relaxed or not.

If you read my posting:

I too say that Ritual spells can be cast in calm situations with mastery because I do not equate using a stress die to meaning under stress. I don't say master means always relaxed because let's face it, you could be trying to cast a healing ritual to heal incap wound on the mage with the spell to teleport you all out of the building that the mundane mob is getting ready to swarm. That is definately stressful situation where mastery only removes stress dice. Do the same ritual in the infirmary at the covenant after a good night's rest and a nice breakfast and mastery means no botch dice.

Stress die is NAME/TITLE of mechanic. Call it a complexity die, call it risk die, call it a chance die. Change the name of the die mechanic and suddenly all the arguments about rituals always being stressful goes away.

A stress die is perhaps best called a chance die: Chance of spectacular success, chance of spectacular failure. Then you can clarify: when not under stress, the chance die can not result in spectacular failure.

It seems that what is in a name is important here because that is what lead to all the confusion.

Not really. The argument revolves around the interpretation of the key sentence "The magnitude of Ritual spells, and the need to incorporate many elements, mean that they are always cast using a stress die". The argument is that it makes no thematic sense for the stated reasons to result in a chance for spectacular success but not for a spectacular failure, and conversly that it does make thematic sense for the first part of that sentence to be counted as a stressful situation, so that the most reasonable reading of that sentence is "[Casting a ritual is stressful], which means that they are always casting using a stress die".

Change that to "...using a chance die", and the argument stays as it is. You may not find it convincing, but that's another matter. I'm not entirely certain I'm convinced myself, but I do think it's at least as good a case as the other interpretation.

Meh. As long as Rituals are relaxed under the same circumstances, be them mastered or not, I don't care which circumstances the SG chooses. And even then, it's not my saga that's inconsistent.

What keeps drawing me back to this discussion[1], besides the fact that I have email notifications of new posts is this discussion being centered on Aegis of the Hearth. Also, something is left unspoken here, a botch on its own isn't overly dangerous, it's the double botch that is the true danger; it's what can cause someone to be thrown into twilight.

What is the real purpose of Aegis of the Hearth? It's not to protect Magi, as they have Parma Magica. It's there to protect the covenfolk, it's there to allow the Magi not have to deal with ankle-biters, the weak creatures who can suddenly appear cause all kinds of havoc, but no lasting damage. So the issue, when focusing on the Aegis is really about how powerful such an Aegis needs to be. I would say, by and large it needs to be 4th magnitude, and no more to resolve the anlke-biter problem. To avoid the risk of Twilight for a 4th magnitude Aegis[2], one needs any of the following: Gold cord of 3, Cautious Sorcerer, Mastery Score of 3, or Mercurion Magic and Mastery of 1. Even without those things, the probablilty of double botching is extremely low. It's been so long since I've done probability, that I'll leave it as an exercise for someone else with a deeper understanding of probability to do.

[1] This discussion has moved beyond RAW and is now really in an area of thematics, and what fits a saga best.
[2] A 4th magnitude Aegis is reasonably cast by 1 individual and can achieve a decent level of penetration[3] on their own. My Bonisagus in the now defunct Phoenix game can get a casting total of 31: Rego 9 + Vim 5 +Sta 2 + Aura 5 +Philo 4 + Artes Lib 5+1 A rego or a vim specialist could likely do much better. Note he has flawless magic of 1, and removes 1 botch die off the top. In two seasons he could learn mastery abilities to bring that up to 1 botch die, and his CT to 32. And the only thing he's "optimized" for in this situation is Flawless Magic.
[3] Presumes that penetration is necessary, if your saga HRs that Wards and Aegis don't have to penetrate, then this is even simpler, and the need for reducing botch dice above and beyond from Wizard's Communion for high level Aegis is removed.

The way I look at it is:
Are actions that use a stress die inherently non-relaxed?

  • no
    Can you be relaxed when casting a non-mastered formulaic spell or ritual spell?
  • yes
    Does this remove the botch dice inherent in casting the spell (1 + vis used)?
  • no
    If I am relaxed and I have at least one mastery in the spell can I cast either type of spell without botch dice?
  • yes
    When am I relaxed?
  • When the SG allows that I am but never in combat nor when I am getting extra botch dice from circumstances. I can usually be assumed to be relaxed when doing offscreen routine casting such as replacing the covenant's utility circle spells or renewing the Aegis of the Hearth.
    If I am not relaxed what is the benefit of mastery?
  • it reduces the botch dice by one per level and as always it increases the casting total by one per level and grants the specific mastery abilities I have chosen.
    What if my SG disagrees?
  • Someone else is casting the Aegis from now on, I have a wife and child to look after.

Not sure why you quoted ezzelino since he said that a mastered spell can be cast without botch die in non-stressful situations. Which does not equal having a spell mastered makes any casting of it a relaxed situation.

I'll help you out. If a ritual is cast as part of a RP session then a stress die is used and there is a chance of botch. If it is cast in a non-RP session then it is relaxed and no chance of botch if mastered. Example: During a story a mage casts a healing ritual on a companion. Not relaxed situation. Example 2) Troupe hand waves casting of the AoH at mid winter. Relaxed casting.

So very simple. Is the mage that is casting it in a story where they will receive adventure experience? If so then always a stress die and a chance to botch. If not then it can be relaxed.

Hard and fast rules. People may go back to casting the Aoh and Bountiful Harvest spells again without resorting to a poor player being forced to take the Mercurian Magic virtue.

That is an interesting answer. The botch creates a story but stories only happen during RP sessions. Botches are not a penalty but a chance for roleplay. And spending xp to master it is another way to roleplay.

This sounds very reasonable - and by the books, too. Maybe we don't need to summon the line editor - high level Ritual, don't try unless relaxed - to calm a nerdstorm, after all. :slight_smile:

Cheers

In a relaxed situation, if you do something wrong you can start over. This is canon as otherwise you could not practise spellmastery for rituals without using vis.

Doesn´t feel right? What doesn´t feel right is to make healing a not quite 1/10 (3.4% absolute minimum) risk of spectacular failure. Or that a similar amount of towers raised by magic will be disasters. Or that rituals for better harvests will have a notable risk of causing a wasteland(or a jungle) instead. Or creation of a resource...
Or making it drastically easier for magi to end up in twilight. THAT and many things like, THAT does not feel "right". Nor have i seen anything what so ever in the game fluff that even mention it happening ever. Why oh why might that be do you think?

By RAW that is clearly not so. If it was they wouldn´t bother to very specifically separate between the different concepts in some cases. Nor specify that stress die does not equal botch risk.

So here's a case where a stress die from Spell Mastery is clearly not beneficial, if going by a strict reading of the RAW.
If you have Magic Addiction, spell mastery is not desirable. The text for Spell Mastery clearly states that the die used is a stress die, even if the caster is relaxed.
The text for Magic Addiction states: "Whenever you use a stress die in spellcasting, you must, whether or not the spell succeeds, make an Intelligence + Concentration stress roll, against an Ease Factor of half the level of the spell"

So, by RAW, if you have Magic Addiction and have mastered a spell, you have to check for succumbing to addiction. However, I don't believe this is the intent of the authors, I use it here to point out that authors sometimes write something that is clearly against their intent. That it has bearing on Spell Mastery and the use of the stress die just lends a bit more evidence that the term stress die used in relation to the Ritual Magic section is unclear as to the intent of the authors.

It says under mastery that if the magus is relaxed they do not roll botch dice "even in a non-magic aura or when using vis", which to me suggests that if before considering the aura or vis the botch dice are reduced to 0 there are no botch dice, even for ritual spells.

I think it's muddle enough to require a House Rule if only for clarification.

Sure the authors might not have considered this precise combination. On the other hand, it doesn't really seem incompatible with what Magic Addiction and Spell Mastery could mean to the character.

To master a spell you must have obsessively, repeatedly cast it (or at least similarly obsessively studied it), which sounds rather like an addiction...so it doesn't seem out of character for a mastered spell to trigger a related addiction episode. In real life, people who are addicted to things tend to have "mastered" any "skills" that might be related to that addiction.

If it's possible that this precise combination wasn't considered (Magic Theory and Spell Mastery combining), then it's certainly possible that they missed other combinations.

For what it's worth, a stress die on a relaxed spell that is mastered is a stress die without a chance of botch, and I think that that factor is rather important. I stipulate to your comments about addiction, generally, though.

I could actually see this being useful- have the addict master a utility spells from covenants (to change trees into lumber for example)- he casts it once, fails the addiction check, and will happily continue to cast it all day long to feed his addiction. You now have a magical lumber mill. Meanwhile the poor addict is trying to explode the dice to see just how far he can push making lumber..

That would actually be quite funny. "Okay we need these rings lit up. The lumber chopped. And these tunics woven. Go crazy."

Most of the Craft spells are low level enough to not have to worry too much about Magic Addiction. 20th level spells even have a reasonable chance of being controlled. It's an EF of 10 versus of Int + Concentration + die roll. That's not too hard to get. It's everything above that 20th level that gets interesting, with 35th level spells often having a huge risk of spiraling into unconsciousness...