If you could just clarify what relaxed casting means by your interpretation please. Just a one liner of what you mean.
Can't do it. You guys decide it. Part of the problem I have with the approach is I now have I adjudicate every die roll to see whether it is appropriately relaxed. About the best I can say is this: without the threat of impending doom would be relaxed.
If the Mastery ability 1 rule is agreed upon, I have no problem with a player not applying this individually to themselves, i.e. the player deciding this ritual I'm doing is going to be a stressful situation. Players, individually can choose that all their ritual casting will be stress die, with the exception of if they are leading Aegis of the Hearth or casting a ritual on another player. Those will be up to me, generally. Players make a case for botch or no botch if I say it is stressful.
OK, i see the conundrum.
Then for my money, there are no relaxed Ritual spells. At best, if you have sufficient Mastery levels you could potentially reduce all the botch dice to 0 meaning if you rolled a 0 there could be no botch, but you would also add 0 to your spell casting total; that would be the worst you could do on a Ritual spell if you had a very high mastery of it.
Ritual Spells IMO are just too difficult, too lengthy, and involve vis. Thus they are always stress rolls, but a high mastery could mitigate the amount of dice.
This wouldn't apply to Formulaic spells unless cast with vis or stressful situations, but even in stressful situations, a little bit of mastery goes a long way as botch dice (barring vis and foreign auras) are usually 2-3 at most.
Yeah, that's not up for debate, that's my interpretation, it's my ruling, my understanding.
What is up for debate is whether we HR that Mastery Ability score of 1 in a ritual spell allows relaxed casting. That's the alternative position. And if you don't agree with that HR being correct is irrelevant, it's whether you want to play with that ruling.
I don't agree with a ruling where 1 level of Mastery makes a ritual non stress. I could play with it, but I don't agree with it. So I don't think we should HR it.
Hrm, that didn't come out very well. My apologies.
Anyway, bottom line, I'm not trying to impose my will on the troupe. If the majority want Mastery ability score of a ritual spell to be allow relaxed ritual casting, or don't care if that's the HR and want to make an exception for themselves, personally, that's what is being discussed.
If you're not for it, but can live with it, say that, and it will help establish consensus.
As it is now, if I may vote on jebrick's behalf
jebrick: 1 ability score in mastery allows relaxed casting of rituals
Peregrine: appears to be a mixed vote, so for consensus
me: I'm in for what the troupe as a whole can agree to. I'm done making arguments on why I think my understanding is closer to RAW. That discussion is OVER. And I don't want to see a rehash of that done here in this saga. So, if you want to discuss this, go over to this threadin the Ars forum and speak your piece there.
As long as the SG says it is a relaxed situation.
jebrick, what it sounds like your saying is that I adjudicate everything as relaxed. My central problem with the relaxed situation is that I have to adjudicate the situations as whether they are relaxed. I really hate having to do that, and I really hate a player presuming or assuming a situation is relaxed for a ritual. Say what you will about what I believe is RAW, but it's always a hard and fast rule that players and SGs can rely on. The HR introduces much more ambiguity or potential for SG fiat.
So, unless there is some sort of impending doom, it will be relaxed. Given that stipulation it's almost always going to be relaxed. I might, and I say might impose a chance of botch if it is the last of the type of vis and no other vis might be substituted. The reason that the MRB gives for a stress die not botching is because the act can be reperformed, that it isn't the final result. Yeah, the HR makes things murky, makes me the situational arbiter, rather than a hard and fast rule that players and SGs can always rely on. "You pays your money you takes your chances." Captain John Sheridon, Babylon5
I've never said everything is relaxed. The rules from Formulaic spells say that if the spell casting is a relaxed situation( which is a SG call) then it is a simple die. And a Mastered spell is ALWAYS a stress die. And a mastered spell cast in a relaxed situation is cast with a stress die but has no chance to botch. All of that is in the RAW. Also in the RAW is that ritual spells are like formulaic spells except where noted as different. This ONLY works for mastered ritual spells.
This is why I think this is pointless because a SG could say that there are no relaxed situations for rituals and thus negating all of that. I was just pointing out that you were ignoring parts of the rules that did not agree with your argument. And ignoring them in a silly way which got me to rule lawyering.
This is always the SG call for what is a relaxed situation. I'm fine with rituals never being relaxed. I would like a ruling on what it means to participate in a ritual ( AoH) and a botch. Not Wizards Communion but to just participate. To be part of the AoH, magi must participate in the casting even though only one person casts the spell.
I'm not ignoring rules, I'm giving them less wait. To me, always cast with a stress die means something. For example, see my last response to Direwolf in that thread. If you can't do a ritual again, because all the vis is consumed is it reasonable to presume that there is a risk of spectacular failure?
Whether you believe it is silly or not, it doesn't help your argument in calling my ignoring something as silly. If you go back and reread the early part of that thread, there are a number of people who believe as I do. The best you get from me is it is ambiguous. Therefore, it is up to the troupe to decide what they want the rule to be and I'll endorse it.
I'm done with the discussion on whether I'm correct in my interpretation or not. Craft a rule you're happy with and the troupe accepts, or accept my interpretation. My part of the discussion is over as to what my interpretation of the rule is. It's up to the troupe to overrule me. Understood?
Which Tribunal is Clair de Lune in? From Hiems's backstory, I got the impression that it was in Provencal, but looking at the map, it looks pretty solidly in Normandy.
I'd call it Provencal. It's southeast of Nidi, the furthest south of the Normandy Tribunal covenants. Also appears that it is only about 40 or 50 miles north of Toulouse.
Okay, so if I'm off on my map, it's not by a whole lot...and looks like it's one of those fuzzy-border situations. Interesting.
If they were larger, they probably would've participated in some of the tournament events...
Maybe they will when Mons Electi hosts.
It is hard to argue with the other redcaps since I do not understand what has happened 
Neither do they (understand). Events have transpired incredibly fast. And Korvin's confusion is reasonably approximated by player confusion.
What's happened, that Korvin knows: Apollodorus had a different identity, Xenophon and was a Tremere at some point previous, although he's been known as Apollodorus of Jerbiton for a very long time. That identity seems to have done something or is considered dangerous by House Guernicus, apparently.
The idea that anyone would be able to quickly strike at Garus in Castra Solis and cause damage of the magnitude to Harco is staggering. It defies anything Korvin should be familiar with. Further, amul will be touching on some elements of House Mercere in his story, which should inform and enhance. If anyone else has any advice to give, feel free to chip in.
Let me just say this, I'm very sparse with my clues on what you should do, because in certain situations, it is entirely up to the character, and I shape the events based on possible outcomes the character chooses. If Korvin had not destroyed the portal to Magvillus, things could be much different. Different good, different bad? Maybe.
The other reason? I consider 30 to be the age of a "hermetic" adult, just figuring out where things stand. Everything that Korvin knows has been turned upside down.
A few points:
-
"Like" doesn't mean "as", but "similar", and I think this tends to be forgotten
-
In the core rules, there are only 2 types of rolls:
- Simple, which occur no botch chances
- Stress, which can succeed or fail spectacularly.
Specifically, there's no longer the "quality die" of previous editions, which was as the stress die, without botch chances. Save that...
-
The Quality Die comes to life again, for relaxed formulaic spells and only for them, even though it's not named as such, just "stress without botch chance".
I think it was not named as such to keep the 5th simplification of die rolls, since this uses the exact same mechanics, but this is clearly a Legacy.
This is the only time when this reappear. Specifically, this is not possible for skill use. -
Based on 2: Non-mastered Formulaics can be cast while relaxed, just like skills can be used while relaxed. These then use a simple die.
Ritual spells always use a stress die. There's no way for them to use a simple die.
Based on this, this implies that "being relaxed" isn't possible for these, especially as the phrase talks about the magnitde of the spell and the need to juggle many components as a reason for this. For me, this speaks trouble -
Mastered relaxed formulaics use, in fact, a "Quality die".
Based on 1: Rituals don't nescessarily work as formulaics, so the fact that formulaics may use a "quality die" doesn't mean that rituals can, as per 3.
Based on 4: If there's no way for rituals to use the "relaxed" rules of skills and formulaics when non-mastered, it stands to reason that's simply because there's no way for them to be "relaxed", given, once again, the magnitude of the spell and all. Ruling otherthise would have:
- Relaxed Formulaics: No problem, use a simple die
- Mastered Relaxed Formulaics: No problem, use a "quality die"
- Relaxed Rituals: No way, stress you go, due to the magnitude, components and all that vis
- Mastered Rituals: Sure, no stress there, use a quality die
This, IMO, is illogical, in that it implies that Relaxed Rituals are, in fact, stressful, or else, they wouldn't use a stress die. The only way this is possible is that Relaxed Rituals don't exist.
Since Rituals take at least 1 hour, there's no way you can cast them during a battle: It'll be over waaaaaaay before the ritual is concluded, probably in the 1st minute.
Unless the battle is a siege or mass battle, and then, it's not that hard to isolate oneself from the noise and all, even if simple PeIm must be used (locking oneself in a room is enough)
=> When does this happens?
Never.
EDIT: oh. Noticed there's 2 more pages. So I'm late. Whatever.
For what it's worth, It's clear I'm on Johnatan and Jebrick side, especially as it means that, as per the fluff, there's a pretty good reason for rituals to be cast by mercurians (aside from reduced vis cost), and that's reduced botch chances
Stupid me, wasting my little time on this, not seeing these pages 
Provence. It's near Saint Clair Lapopie
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
Which, IMO, is pretty RAW: I believe (serf's parma) that's when you leave the ranks of Junior Magi in the rhine
(Which is why I have problems with "young adults" being able to might-strip Planetary Spirits without preparation, but Meh 
)
You know, this has been gamed out pretty thoroughly, and while I acknowledge your base concern, I really don't see how your proposed solution actually generates the gradient you want to see. There was a fair bit of number crunching somewhere that seemed to suggest that even by your proposed rules, the Mega-Might spirits would only take an additional round or two to fight.
My experience is that, PbP delays not withstanding, combat in Ars, indeed in most RPGs, is brutally short. It rarely lasts for more than three rounds when the teams are even.
If you want to convince me to adopt a rules system, then you need to provide a much more rigorous proposal, including examples of:
- Average duration of mundane battles
- Clear book examples of what a Might Score implies about scope (eg, how powerful is a Might 40 being supposed to be? What is the highest published Might character?)
- A system that actually achieves your stated goals, based on a realistic measurement of average combat times -- which the Might Soak variants are proven not to do.
I agree that the RAW puts a lot of power in the hands of magi. I'd counter that you're looking solely at combat mechanics. A Might 50 being has a lot more resources available to it than its raw combat stats. Come to that, real-life drug lords have no more Soak than the average human being, but still seem surprisingly resistant to attack.
If you're going to keep thinking inside this box, Fixer, then I am eventually going to have to take it away from you.
Relaxed use of mastered spells may be the only time that the "quality die" (and I'm glad you remembered that, I had totally forgotten that term and I think it needs to make a comeback) is specifically called for in spell-casting, but it's not the only time it's used in the game. Aging rolls, for example, call for "stress die (no botch)", and I think there may be one or two other uses, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
That's okay, I'm not even sure I remember what Jonathan's side is,anymore . As it stands now, barring a ruling or errata from Atlas, I'm not wholly comfortable with either interpretation. Just too much room for interpretation. The interpretation I'm going with in Canaries, that Mastery of a Ritual Spell allows you to use a Quality Die in a relaxed situation, works for me. Just as Jonathan's, that Mastery only allows you to reduce the number of Botch Dice one at a time, works too. So I'm not even going to think about it anymore unless I see that David Chart posts in my thread, pretty much.