Spont ritual magic

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

For some reason I was thinking ritual magic could not be spontaneous, but upon checking I can’t find this limitation anywhere. If I am just being silly and magi can cast spontaneous ritual magic, would the Mercurian Magic virtue work with spontaneous ritual spells as well as normal ones? Finally, would a spontaneous ritual cause warping, since it was created specifically for the target?

I am going to be running a session for my group and I made sure I put in a magi with good creo corpus healing spells in the group. (NPC which I asked a player to run for this session, since his magus is not interested in the event) However, one PC magus has Giant Blood, which means technically he is too big for the very useful Incantation of the Body Made Whole spell the Mecurian magi knows. Now, I could switch out Flexible Formulaic Magic for Mercurian Magic, but that could run the vis costs for this healing spell past his limit for using vis in a single season.

2

Ritual magic is listed by itself, apart from Spontaneous.
And, "Ritual spells are like Formulaic spells, but they take longer to cast..."
p81, AM5.

3

If you look at page 81, formulaic magic, ritual magic and spontaneous magic are listed in separate headings : they are three entirely separate ways to do magic. Ritual magic cannot be spontaneous for the same reason than walking and driving are different: you do one or the other. And Ritual Magic are 'like Formulaic spells', which specifically require that the magus know them to cast them.

However, I think the question you were asking is why the same effect could not be cast spontaneously, and here it is: AM5 p.114:

- Formulaic and spontaneous spells may not have Year duration - Formulaic and spontaneous spells may not have Boundary targets [...] - Formulaic and spontaneous spells may not have a level greater than 50

Not that it does not say that ritual spells may have Year duration and so forth, it specifically says that spontaneous spells may not.

And then you have the fact that Ritual Creo magic with Momentary duration. creates thing permanently (and only Ritual Creo magic, not formulaic or spontaneous Creo magic), and the line somewhere about some spells being rituals because of their major effect.

1 Like
4

Besides the above comments, Flexible Formulaic Magic explicitly doesn't work with ritual magic.

Consider inventing the same type of spell with Target: Circle. The disadvantages of Target: Circle aren't so bad with rituals like this. Alternatively, find a Mutantum magus to teach you some Spell Mastery options.

Chris

5

I looked over page 81 before I posted. It describes Formulaic Magic, Ritual Magic and Spontaneous Magic. In looking at the descriptions of what can be done, I can see how Formulaic and Spontaneous Magic have contradictory clauses and how Ritual and Formulaic have contradictory clauses, but Spontaneous Magic and Ritual Magic didn't.

Still, there is the fact that Ritual Magic has one casting total formula and Spontaneous has another and no suggestion that Ritual Magic ever uses anything other than its casting total. Remember, I was not arguing that Spont Ritual magic should be possible or is possible, I was trying to track down clear rules establishing that it was not. I don't think it is as clear as it should be.

Anyway, as for my original problem, I think the group has houseruled base sizes for Corpus and Animal spells one level higher.

6

I don't get any clue of what are you trying argue...
With Spontaneus Spells/effect you can't use any Ritual effect: No Boundary nor Yer nor Creo Momentary / Durable Effect last... But with the Simple Formulaic effect the difference are only two: The total and the limits on the effects intended and the limits on the parameters (Range/Duration/Objective) un-conventional. Two of them (the effect concrete and the possible Un-conventional parameters) are part of the things to both Formulaic magic, the ritual and the No-Ritual. The Casting Total is different with the time to cast one and another.
What is your point? Any question is implicit in the rules...

7

Unclear?

Quoting myself:
"Ritual spells are like Formulaic spells, but they take longer to cast..."
p81, AM5.

How is that anything but very obvious and clear?

8

See this topic.

IMO, ritual is some variety of formulaic magic.

9

There is a variety of Spontaneous Ritual Magic: Ceremonial Casting.

If I'm not mistaken, however, Ceremonial Casting does not allow for the use of Vis for permanent effect, or for boundary or year effects.

Also, Ceremonial casting cannot benefit from Wizard's Communion.

Spontaneous (Ceremonial) rituals and Formulaic Rituals are pretty clearly differentiated at several points.

10

I am not sure how to answer your question without being more confrontational than the situation calls for. Women are like men. Does describing women as being like men mean that when I talk about horses there are no female horses?

To be clear, I don’t think spont ritual magic is allowed in the rules. I do think showing that requires the kind of parsing of the text normally reserved for interpretations of Revelations of the Apostle John. If the Giant Blood character receives six medium wounds and the party wants to heal him with spontaneous ritual magic, I want to have the explanation of why that doesn’t work at my fingertips.

11

Camels are beast of burden like horses, but they can survive the desert. There are no dogs with hump.

Ceremonial casting is a female dog, but camels are not female horses. Three headings, three beasts. Sex is a spellcasting option.

12

:unamused:

If Ritual magic is LIKE FORMULAIC, that means it CANNOT be like Spontaneous. Unless you´re trying to say that you CAN do Spontaneous Formulaic magic.

13

Direwolf, I agree with your conclusion (in fact so does dwightemarsh); but the logic in your quote above is wholly fallacious. A can be "like" B in lots of ways and "unlike" B in lots of other ways. If someone else had written the above sentence to support a position with which you disagreed, you would be all over the weak argument. Please apply the same standards to the statements you use to support your own positions. (Or don't - but then you don't get to use the eyeroll emoticon at other people.)

14

I already quoted the rest of the text which goes on to say what the exceptions are.

If you think that then you´re not looking at the full picture. A IS like B, B IS NOT like C, therefore trying to have A to be like C becomes pretty much impossible.
Call me lazy for not writing it all again... But thats because its already totally obvious as its written in RAW.
You simply cant twist it enough to make the logic work.

Of course i do.

15

To get back to the essence of the question, if all you want is to have an on-hand explanation to justify why you oppose a Ritual-Spontaneous hybrid, you might try this chain of logic.

From ArM5 81-85, the rules lay out how Hermetic Magic Works.

There are, within Hermetic Magic, three distinct types of spells: Spontaneous, Formulaic and Ritual. These three are delineated with their own headings very clearly, along with rules of how they are cast and their relative advantages and disadvantages.

Besides being explicit in this delineation, there are blatant seperations within the section, for example a section on "Non-Ritual Magic" which explains options available for "Spontaneous and Formulaic spells, but not with Ritual Magic" (ArM5, 83).

You might tell your troupe that, given such clear rules, if they propose that one type of spell might be capable of more, than they show you where and how it is possible.

You might also show them that there already is an explicit section on Ritualistic Spontaneous Magic called "Ceremonial Magic" which explains, explicitly, the extent to which Spontaneous Magic may mimic Ritual equivalents.

Unfortunately, while this does include adding Philosophy and Ars Lib scores in exchange for longer casting times, it does not include the use of vis for permanent, boundary or high-level effects.

As a rule, Spontaneous Magic is there to produce off the cuff, lower intensity effects than Formulaic Magic. That's one of the reasons that Wizard's Communion does not work with Ritual Spontaneous Magic: Spontaneous Ceremonial Magic is materially different from the very rigid Hermetic Ritual Magic.

Having said that, this would be a good candidate for a Hermetic breakthrough, especially through the Diedne branch of magic, if someone were willing to go all Tehran nuclear-physics lab on the order....

As a more practical solution for your Giant player, there's a CrCo25 (I think that's the magnitude) spell (ritual) which improves any wound by one magnitude. Perfect if you don't have access to lots of books on the different forms of ritual healing.