Someone asked "what does mastered == No Botch add to the Saga" (more or less) but I can't find the quote. I'll answer anyway :
IMS a mastered ritual removes all botch dice in relaxed circumstances (ie almost all the time). This gives my saga the following benefits:
There is no big discussions and quarrels about who must cast the Aegis.
All covenants have an aegis which helps explain how they stay safe from hostile supernaturals.
The players actively seek out and research rituals for permanent or long effects.
Covenants (and older magi) use ritually generated and big effects at home to impress, improve or protect themselves.
Rituals get used at all. Rituals are so undesirable in themselves (expensive, takes lots of time) that making them botch-magnets in addition would remove them from the game for my players. They'd do almost anything to avoid them if they couldn't be mastered for no botch.
In your game, Korvin has two healing rituals master for penetration. The point is to be able to cast them with a mage's parma up. Getting AoH with Lab Mastery would be another good example. None of these take away from Cautious Sorcerer, Flawless Magic, Mastered spells and the Golden Cord which have uses with formulaic spells.
Now multiple masteries for rituals is not logical much beyond the two examples I gave.
I think it is up to the SG to decide if the casting is relaxed or not. My guess is most of them are relaxed simply because if you are going to take two hours to do something I'm guessing something is not trying to kill you. Now if your life hangs in the balance on whether the ritual works or not would be another story.
You sparsely quoted me, breaking the context of my response.
I was responding to Tugdal's assertions.
In those assertions, he says the ritual magic section mentions neither stress or relax.
He brings up Formulaic magic, which is actually the non-sequitur.
And then he states he cannot support Ritual casting always being stressful.
I then countered with:
I referred to the ritual section, in the topic of Spell Mastery and Ritual spells. I can ignore points made about formulaics, because those are the non-sequiturs.
If, on page 81, it states: "Rituals must always be cast with a stress die" then that's a pretty important statement. And then we go back to page 6, where the Stress Die is defined, and the first sentence says, "Stress dice are rolled when a character is under stress, and thus might succeed spectactularly or fail with equal flair." I think we can (safely) infer that rituals are always stressful. If rituals are always stressful then mastery of a spell to an ability score of 1 has no bearing on whether or not the ritual can be cast without a chance of botch, because they cannot be cast in a relaxed manner.
I agree, there is a dearth of mastery abilities available for Rituals. That is another good discussion to have[1].
Well, as always, it's a YSMV thing. House Rules are important, especially when the text is ambiguous or confusing. For me, rituals will always be stressful. Others may HR something entirely different. I'm now satisfied why I feel like it's cheap to spend just 5 XP and never worry about botching a ritual: it's not supported by RAW.
[1]Paul Briscoe's De Domo Tremeris has a Ritual mastery which tries to approximate the Mercurian Virtue. Another virtue related to reducing botch dice for the ritual, something like Aligning the Vis: This mastery ability is taken for Ritual spells only. By carefully aligning the vis used in a Ritual the caster reduces the chances of catastrophic failure by some value.
Well the credit goes to you! Your assertion crystalized the issue in my mind. The discussion was never really about Mastery, and had everything to do with Ritual Magic. Once I understood that, it pushed me to read that section much more carefully, instead of glossing it over and focusing ont he Mastery piece, which I had been doing in all attempts before.
So, how often does casting Aegis cause twilight in your games then? Or healing?
The warping gained from LR is suddenly a potentially big problem for anyone casting rituals.
Perhaps you should also have read on further on p6?
"Some stress rolls cannot botch."
You might want to read p7 as well. "There are some situations..."
As have already been stated before, and the above quotes clearly states, stress die =/= stressful as in risk of botch.
First part of the quote is irrelevant since rituals are not specified as always stressful, but mastery 1+ does not AFAIK remove the risk of botch if cast under stressful conditions.
Yes, there are a number of situations where stress die is rolled with no chance of botch. Using a stress die for a roll does not always mean situation is STRESSFUL and can't be relaxed.
Aging is one example, effects of certain spells (unraveling form of XXX) is another.
Honestly, I've only got a few games I'm part of, and they're here. One I'm running and one I'm a player. Warping should be a big problem. The number of games I'm a part of is really irrelevant. I'm basing this on a reading of the rules.
The way you wrote that, you presume I didn't read those sections. I did.
Looking at "Some stress rolls cannot botch" first, as far as I can tell, the situations where stress rolls cannot botch are clearly defined for those specific situations. I see no such definition with Ritual Magic. If the text in Ritual Magic said, it is up to the SG as to whether this is a stress roll without chance of botch, you might have a point.
Secondly issue, "There are some situations..." This statement is very similar to the first statement, but it provides guidance, such as if he were making something, but had time to do it again. It's a stretch, but I do see some wiggle room here. However, I see this as a guideline to be used in adjudicating a die roll for a situation that is outside RAW. Since Ritual Magic is well defined, I don't see this as applying. I'll admit it that it introduces ambiguity.
Here, we will disagree, and I'll quote it again.
Nowhere in the Ritual Magic section on page 81 does it qualify that this is a situation that is subject to extroardinary succcess without extraordinary risk of failure, you roll a 0, you check for botch, with at least as many botch dice as pawns of vis +/- other modifiers as appropriate to the situation.
I believe this applies only to formulaic spells, not Ritual spells, because Rituals (and I'll admit it's an inferrence of the RAW[1]) are always cast under stressful conditions. A formulaic spell may be cast under non-stressed conditions, and frequently is cast in non-stressed situations.
[1] I don't disagree that this is a harsh interpretation, but I belive it is closer to RAW than saying Mastery Ability 1, no risk of botching a ritual ever! This is at least as harsh as Wards/Aegis must penetrate. I recognize that it is controversial because many players and SGs have likely played this way for years.
Also, let me add, that I believe that this adds to the richness of stories.
This makes rituals a bit less common, or those who cast them much more specialized. I don't think that's a bad thing. It forces players to pursue choices for their characters with a much finer detail than they would have to if they can avoid ritual botches by spending 5 xp to master a ritual. It may also explain why there are so few extremely old magi in the Order, as should be possible giving the propensity for LR experts to exist within sagas. Poor Astrolabe of Jerbiton, he led the last casting of the Aegis for us, and disappeared into final twilight when he botched the spell. Perhaps he should've spent more time mastering it.
Does it pigenhole the CrCo specialist? Not necessarily. Maybe they are pursuing only Longeivty Rituals, and could care less about healing? A healer will spend time to master spells, or pick virtues (Cautious, Mercurian or Flawless) in an effort to minimize the risk of botching. Also keep in mind, if the goal of reducing a botch is to avoid twilight, you just need to get down to 1 botch die for perfect safety from Twilignt (unless you're Twilight Prone). For the less risk averse amongst us, they might go for getting it down to 2 botch dice. When taken in the context of Flawless/Mastered Spells/Cautious Sorcerer/Mercurian, it's really easy to get the botch dice down to a low level.
That is an assumption based on nothing but your own assumption.
Incorrect, they are always cast using a stress die. Your claim is simply wrong, end of story.
Just as the opposite is also not specified. The only thing specified is the use of stress DIE.
This is an assumption that i can see zero support for. Would you mind specifying where there is such a list of situations?
It IS up to the SG wether a stress die is rolled with or without botch risk. Since that isn´t limited to ritual casting, why should it be specified?
That is an arbitrary choice by you, not RAW.
No it does not. What it means is that healing rituals will be even more unused than when played by RAW.
Why would any magi want to risk twilight just to heal someone except in special cases? The only ones doing it will be those with Cautious sorcerer and enough mastery to remove botch dice.
Few magi would want to risk using CrTe to create buildings.
Few magi would want to take the risk of using CrHe to boost agriculture...etc etc etc...
So unless a magi has Cautious sorcerer that means a minimum of Mastery 3 for every single ritual they want to cast.
30 XP extra for all rituals, at 5XP per season that means you´re stealing away one and a half YEARS at the very minimum for every ritual you want to use.
And that anyone twilight prone simply wont be using rituals at all. Oh joy, how much fun and richness of stories where people wont dare to use rituals.
Really? In that case why does RAW simply state "Some stress rolls cannot botch."?
Answering only your last question.
Can you cast a Ritual spell, without Mastery and without a risk of botch? That's a fundamental question. If you believe yes, then Spell Mastery 1 for rituals for you. If you believe no, then I can't see how you can justify it. shrug
I think you're being very selective in quoting me. And smileys which indicate sarcasm doesn't help me believe the sincerity of your arguments.
Also, let me point out another exceprt on page 81:
This snippet of text is pulled from the second paragraph of the Formulaic Magic section, below the Formulaic Casting Total description. There is no such disclaimer or qualification added to the Ritual Magic section that immediately follows.
you are rule lawyering at this point. Since under Ritual Magic on pg 81 it says that Ritual spells are like Formulaic spells but take longer. That would mean the rules for Ritual Spells follow the rules for Formulaic spells except where noted as different under the Rituals spells.
Call it what you will. SG's perogative. I address your assertion, indeed all the assertions people have indicated below. I think. Same applies to the Wards/Aegis must penetrate debate. It IS controversial, and I believe it IS RAW. If people have been playing under a set of assumptions that's fine, I'm not trying to convince them that they need to play a different way. What I am trying to do is come up with a rational understanding of why I believe, and have always believed, that Spell Mastery 1 to mitigate all risk of botch for rituals isn't RAW.
Defining what necessitates a stress die
Observing the exceptions to a stress die indicating the risk of spectacular failure
The rule on page 7 seems geared more towards some sort of story event, or something that results in an end product. It could be extended to other things, but I don't think that's what is intended.
Going back to page 81, there are some things that have been used to equate Formulaics and Ritual Magic and then link it to the Spell Mastery relaxed casting exception.
One that's been thrown out in the topic:
However, the section on Formulaics clarifies the effects of Spell Mastery, before it is even defined on Page 86 it states:
There is no such exception stated in the Ritual Magic section.
And finally, there is page 86, where this discussion started
This sentence exists in the Spell Mastery section above, and a variation of it exists under the Formulaic section. However, there is absolutely no mention of anything like this under the Ritual magic section, which leads me to conclude that Rituals are always cast in a "stressful" manner, and have the risk of spectacular failure or success, unless a combination of Virtues, the Golden Cord and Spell Mastery are combined in such a away to reduce all botch dice, and therefore, cannot botch.
There is no "however". there is Ritual Spells are like Formulaic spells with the exception that Ritual spells take longer and use vis. So the paragraph in Formulaic spells applies to Ritual spells since Ritual spells are like formulaic spells.
So they are like formulaics, with the exception that they are always cast using a stress die. Formulaics, if they are mastered may be cast with a stress die, without risk of botch, if it is mastered. That is written in the formulaics section. It is not repeated in the Ritual Magic section. I think that is a strong distinction. If it were the intent that a Ritual could be cast in a relaxed manner, if it were mastered, the same statement written in the Formulaic section should be in Ritual section. Instead, it is a completely different statement.
You can continue to disagree with me, but I'm pretty set on where I'm at. You may disagree with me, and that's fine. I put this up for troupe discussion in Bibracte. I don't have any dog in the hunt, the troupe can go one way or another. We move together or not at all. And not at all means my interpretation of RAW. If you can convince the other players of reasons to allow Spell Mastery 1 in a Ritual spell to mitigate botch dice, I'm fine with it.
Why repeat something if the first sentence says that they are exactly like Formulaic spells. All the rule for Formulaic spells apply to Ritual spells with the exceptions of vis and time. So if a rule is written in the formulaic section is not countered in the Ritual section then the rules must be the same sense it says that in the first line of the Ritual section. I just do not see how there is any ambiguity there.
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