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.
Actually, there was a story once of a covenant that had to do a ritual to resolve a crisis situation, they were under the gun for time since it had to be performed before it was too late. Level 40 ritual in a faerie 8 aura with 17 botch dice and 9 of them came up 0's.
No time to master it, stress because of the crisis situation and time limit (no time to try again if first casting failed.
Rituals can be forced to stress because of circumstances. Rituals already have a lot of other drawbacks: longer casting times, lots of vis used. If someone takes the extra season to master it, then I would say in most situations, there are no botch dice. The drain on vis resources alone is a drawback.
That's a bit of a contrived situation. An outlier, to be sure. Once out of how many hundred or thousand times?
More than half the formulaic spells that I cast are simple dice. Rituals are more costly than formulaic as they use finite limited resources (vis), they always give fatigue, they take a long time to cast comparitively so can't be used on whim or on the spot generally.
There is no reason they have to be huge botch magnets if someone is going to take seasons (perhaps better used for something else) to master them.
While I agree that most ritual spells should not be cast under stressful circumstances, this could happen. The press of time, environmental situations (outside during a storm), interruptions (an attack on the covenant happens during the casting) are all possibilities. Yes, this should only be less than 5% of the cases, and mostly as a plot device. But sometimes it is the players themselves who will have put themselves in a situation where they need to cast that ritual now, under a less-than-ideal situation. Trust them to find one.
As for the example you give, well, shouldn't the SG specify beforehand that the situation is not relaxed, and why? Then leave it to the player to decide whether to cast the spell now or postpone it. Which, basically, brings us back to how sensitive the "relaxed" rule is. Some SG will make the "relaxed situation" easy, while others will decide that just being out-of-door in less-than-ideal weather (high wind, or rain, or darkness) enough to say that the magus is not relaxed. You've got room to decide on which side you are, but this needs to be stated to the players beforehand. Some rituals can be postponed until the magus can be relaxed; others can't. (If you want your Aegis to be up right now, you may have to cast it under heavy rain.)
Just my 2 cents.
The formulaic thing is a non-sequitur. The issue at hand is ritual spells and the risk of botching.
We're not talking seasons, though. We're talking about 5 xp. A season at most, if all botch dice can be eliminated by simple mastery. While I don't disagree with you that the risks are great for rituals requiring a lot ov Vis, I don't agree that it can simply and easily mitigated by a season's worth of effort.
Further, I have trouble seeing why anyone would ever pursue multiple mastery abilities for a particular ritual spell. By spending 5 xp, you've mitigated all risk of a botch. It doesn't really make any sense, and I'd love for someone to explain it to me. And by explain, I don't mean that you quote RAW. I mean, a way that it enhances the entire game, for the entire troupe. No one has countered my argument that it is cheap use of RAW. 5 xp to mitigate all risk of botching on a ritual spell cheapens virtues such as Cautious Sorcerer, Flawless Magic, Mastered spells, Mercurian Magic (which has problems already), and the Golden Cord. It also makes the flaw Loose Magic not much of a flaw at all. Makes it 10 XP to master a ritual spell, and since the mastery likely comes from a Q10 Tractatus, no big deal.
No, When you have wounds and you are trapped somewhere as enemies are outside, I would say it is botch risk if you use your CO vis to heal yourself. Another post listed other things that can remove relaxed condition.
Look at the Ad Fons game: They had a covenant under seige at one point by faerie army. That would make rituals stress.
What makes rituals rituals is the vis requirement, the extra time (so you can't cast it while being chased by enemies), always cost fatigue.
RAW say relaxed means no botch dice and yeah, it is worth the season esp for aegis fo the hearth but you do have to take the season. Another limited resource.
What you describe is a contrivance, arguably to suit the needs of the SG or the troupe. From a player perspective, I'd rather have a hard and fast rule to rely on, then let "story" dictate whether a ritual cast at a certain time is stressful or relaxed. If we go back to the description of Ritual Magic on pg. 81, it says
IMO, when I read that, I can envision myself (as myself, but working magic) thinking the whole time, I hope I don't fsck this up. That doesn't strike me as a relaxed situation. I can imagine myself, holding X pawns of something that could burn my face off, make it disappear, tear down the barriers between the mundane and magical words, etc, and not being a bit concerned unless I had spent a long time learning the intracacies of the spell and how to keep stuff from going wrong (mastery).
So, if the intent is to allow the SG to define stressful situations, ok. There, I've defined it. Ritual is always a stressful situation. Period. End of story. I would prefer knowing if that is the intent of the authors, than just putting it up to SG fiat.
That same handful of vis that can burn your face off is issue when you cast formulaic spell with vis boost but again, if you are relaxed, you roll simple die and have no botch dice.
Mastery means you are taking time to master it and know exactly how far to reach and train in the coordination.
You would master ritual more than once for some of teh mercurian ritual type masteries (there are a few in HoH:S).
That's a fair point. It presumes that they enemies can't get to the caster for the amount of time it takes to cast the ritual, and that the caster doesn't know it. Yeah, that'd be an example of stressful. Other ways to skin that cat, than casting the ritual, though, and the risk averse player/character would evaluate the other options, first.
That's a pretty long running saga with a lot of stuff going on. I'll look at it, but you have to provide me with a pointer to the thread.
If we're going to get into particulars, let's discuss resources, as it relates to the specific saga we're apart of, it appears that vis will be abundant. In a vis poor saga, I would consider acceeding to a troupe consensus that Ritual spells, with a mastery ability score of 1 can be cast without the risk of botching. In a vis rich saga, time is the biggest factor, and it feels more Mythic, IMO, to differentiate the caster who studies a ritual and the myriad ways of controlling the vast magics at his command (mastery of 4 or better, maybe 6 or better if Flawless Magician), and the guy who goes, yeah, I know that spell and just casts it without worrying about the conseuqences (Mastery of 1 or 0).
My position on this is perfectly aligned with that of One Shot. The rules are very clear on this:
This means the vast majority of magi will spend 5xp to master any Ritual they cast regularly, particularly if it's cast in a Communion. I do not think this seriously cheapens botch reducing virtues/measures, because most spells characters cast are not Rituals and because botch reducing virtues/measures usually have a much larger relative impact when you would be rolling only two or three botch dice rather than a dozen.
YEah, the botch reducers are more important for when in that dominion aura and you vis boost spells or you are attacking that diabolist in his infernal 4 lair and using 5 pawns of vis to boost that DEO penetration against his chief henchman.
The first part of the Spell Mastery line could be read as: "A relaxed mastered spell can still succeed spectacularily." The problem is the second part which implies that even when using vis there could be no botch. This makes it impossible to assume using vis is stressful.
The Raw Vis section reminds us that under calm conditions you can use a simple die. Nothing here helps us decide whether Ritual casting is necessary stressful, or if it is sometimes relaxed.
The Ritual Magic section mentions neither stress nor relax, but "Ritual spells are like Formulaic spells."
The Formulaic Magic section clearly requires to uses a simple die when not under pressure, moreover it repeats the Spell Mastery text.
I find it impossible to support that Ritual casting is always stressful.
Vis alone isn't what's making it stressful. You dropped the rest of the line.
Let's go back to the ritual section. You cannot support that casting a ritual is always stressful. I think your assertion is unsupported by RAW. From the same section.
Stripping away the discussion of mastery, doesn't that at the very least imply that a ritual spell is always stressful?
Ahm .. that's a very plain, obvious non sequitur. "cast using a stress die" /= "stressful". Tugdual himself made that very clear in his post as he referenced ArM5 p.81 on Formulaic Magic.
Cheers