That's actually better. Lucas has a Mentem of 6 and an Animal of 10. So his base CT for a spontaneous MuAn spell is 12 [(12+10+2)/2] plus half a stress die.
As for Penetration, I never will understand that properly. But I'll try.
So I have a base Penetration of 1 (you're right, I was wrong about the 0), this normally gets multiplied by 1. But with the AC and the name, it gets multiplied by (1+2+1), or 4. So I have an effective Penetration of 4.
So I need to roll a 22 (+0 for his Mentem 0, +1 for Aura) to penetrate Acutus's PM (that's 5 to get the spell to work and 17 more to get through his 16 magic resistance). But with my Penetration, it goes down to 18. Since I have a 12 CT from Fo and Te, I just have to roll a 6 on my half die, or at least 11. That's a low chance, but decent enough chance to risk trying it a few times.
My numbers are as follows: [12 (Mu) + 10 (An) + 2 (Sta) + 11 (stress die)]/2 = 35/2 = 18
If we can boost the Penetration bonus to +4, then he only needs to roll a 9 on the stress die, which ups his chance a lot.
[color=red]I thought you were Mutantes. Can't you boost that with vis or something?
The memory spell seems a bit extreme. Don't do that. But whatever form of com spell you use' you would have to Penetrate. That's the reaon we all exchanged ACs.
You will need an Animal spell anyways. Who has the best score? With a Spont, I suggest Ceremonial casting. Use CrAn to let him know what we are up to. He won't be able to respond, for his gear (and ACs) are on board with us. Just let him know we plan to ride over the storm and will set back down once we clear it.
"Certainly I could," Lucas replies. "If I had the vis. Right now I only have three vim and four corpus to my name. I spent the rest that I had, perhaps foolishly, buying some magical texts from a dying winter covenant. Unfortunately, that leaves me tapped out right now."
"I agree," Lucas replies. "But I thought I ought to put it forward as an option."
Lucas has Animal 10. But Roberto might be a better choice because of his higher Penetration. Animal gets halved for a spont spell, but Penetration doesn't. As between Lucas and Roberto we have the following:
Lucas's Casting Total: 7 (Cr) + 10 (An) + 2 (Sta) + stress die = 19 + stress die Lucas's effective Penetration: 1 x [1 (base) + 2 (AC) + 1 (Name)] = 1 x 4 = 4
Roberto's Casting Total: 9 (Cr) + 3 (An) + 1 (Sta) + stress die = 13 + stress die Lucas's effective Penetration: 3 x [1 (base) + 2 (AC) + 1 (Name)] = 3 x 4 = 12
Therefore, Roberto will need to roll a 30 on the stress die to reach Acutus.
[13 (CT) + 3 (ceremonial casting) + 2 (loud words and exaggerated gestures) + 1 (Aura) + 30 (stress die)]/2 + 12 Penetration > [15 (spell level) + 21 (Acutus's MR)]
49/2 + 12 > 36
25 + 12 > 36
37 > 36
In contrast, Lucas will need to roll a 40 on the stress die to reach Acutus.
[19 (CT) + 3 (ceremonial casting) + 2 (loud words and exaggerated gestures) + 1 (Aura) + 40 (stress die) ]/2+ 4 Penetration > [15 (spell level) + 21 (Acutus's MR)]
65/2 + 4 > 36
33 + 4 > 36
37 > 36
Neither is a particularly promising option, even if we were willing to use vis. I think Acutus simply has too great a MR in Animal for us to succeed in breaking through, even with ACs. Lucas is willing to give it a try. But it's an incredible long shot.
"Excellent point," Lucas replies. "I'm not thinking like a Bjornaer."
"While we wait for sunset, I might as well try and make up a horoscope for Acutus. That'll help with the spell." He scratches numbers on a wax tablet for an hour or so before wiping the whole thing clean and starting over. The second time around, he's happy with the results.[sup]1[/sup]
Then, just before sunset comes, Lucas prepares himself and starts casting his spell. He times it so that the spell will go off shortly before sunset, maximizing his chance to catch Acutus without his parma. His message is short: We went above the storm. When it's over, surface on our current course. We'll rendezvous with you there. After he finishes the spell, he takes a deep breath and says, "I think it went through," he reports. [sup]2[/sup]
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[sup]1[/sup] Here are his attempts to make a horoscope:
First Attempt: 2 (Artes Liberales) + 3 (Int) + simple die vs EF of 9; 5 + 1d10=2 = 7 vs 9; failure Second Attempt: 5 + 1d10=8 = 13 vs 9; success
That should give Lucas a Penetration 5 [1 x (1 (base) + 1 (name) + 1 (horoscope) + 2 (AC))] = 1 x 5 = 5
[sup]2[/sup] Here are his attempts to cast the spell:
Spell: CrAn (Base 3, form words in another's mind, +4 AC, +0 Mom, +0 Ind) = CrAn15
First attempt:1d10=6; CS = 31/2 = 16 vs spell level of 15 + 6 MR = 21 - 5 Penetration = 16; 16 vs 16; failure Second Attempt:1d10=8; 33/2 vs. 16; 17 vs. 16; success
Should succeed, unless he put his Parma up before the spell went off.
Acutus' plan is to continue on to Riad's island as was the original plan.
As for the spell, I'll wait for Fixer to let me know if it made it through. He should still be able to perform the Parma ritual as a shark, right? Or does it explicitly state you have to have arms or something?
I offer no rulings or advice. Just that I doubt this will work. You have a small window when parma goes down, times with the Cerimonial Casting. If the first attempt fails, his Parma will be back up before the second casting has a chance. You should instead spend Confidence on that first casting. And if all else fails, we will just trust that he will meet up with us on the island anyway. If he is late, then we try more radical measures.
I wasn't sure if Bjornaer magi could re-up their parma in heartbeast form or not. If they can, then I agree, it wouldn't have worked.
How far out are we from the island? Days? Hours? That will influence whether it's worth spending confidence on the attempt.
If it's days, then we're probably better off just seeing if Acutus meets us along the route to the island, which is where he's going, after all. He'll probably look for us on the surface, heading in the direction of the island once the storm is over, just as we'd look for him there. If we can't find him then, we can try again at dawn with a better rendezvous.
But if it's hours, then we probably want to reach him right away, and spending confidence is worth it.
I don't mind spending the confidence point. But I'd rather not spend it just to tell Acutus to do something he was going to do anyway. I have a feeling I'm going to need those Confidence points when we get to the underwater palace.
Johan confers with Horus. He likes Horus. Birds are better than people.
Do they share a language? I will have to look that up. If they do, he comments how [color=green]Wizards can be stupid jerks sometimes, endlessly chattering about how the could cast this or that spell or try whatever magic tricks that won't work, and then sets to using his best rekoning to determine how long it will take to pass over the storm.
I am phone posting, so feel free to roll for me or amber this one :mrgreen:
(They both speak Latin. They also both understand Spanish - Johan at 2, since he's insulting Roberto, and Horus at 3 as a default from Catalan.)
"I don't mind so much when the talk about the things they can't do," Horus replies. "It's when they start going on about all the things they can do that they get insufferable."
Yup, there's just the problem that Acutus was guiding the other characters, who are now somewhere above the clouds while he is somewhere below the sea.
He can find the island. Without him, they'll have a hard time doing it. And he knows this.
I don't think so.
I checked through Apprentices yesterday, and it says that they learn the parma through exposure, by watching and mimicking their parens. It also adds that the parens witholds some verbal and physical components.
So, even assuming that most of the Parma ritual is just a kind of meditation (which could, in itself, be disrupted at least somewhat by swimming, just like it could be by walking), it sure seems that there's at the very least some kind of physical ceremony involved, which is exactly how the corebook speaks or the Parma Magica ritual. And Apprentices seems to run against this "mostly mental" parma thingie, since an apprentice that knows the gestures/words and manage to figure out the missing ones can create a parma.
Also, if it was a mostly mental exercise (like "I picture a small red sphere that grows and encompass you. That's for Ignem. Now I do the same with a blue sphere, while keeping the first in mind. That's for Aquam"), copying one's master's words ("Ignem") and gestures ("Finger in the nose") would do little to help.
Should I make a ruling on this, I'd base it on spellcasting: No words (-10) and no gestures (-05) to that would mean -3 (-15/3) to one's effective parma score: It is possible to do a purely mental parma, but it is difficult. What do you think of it?
So I guess this means Lucas can message Acutus: in all ways, he'd have Parma 0.
Days, I thought I had told that before, sorry.
Assuming you traveled "normally", you've done about 1/3 of the travel. If you always used Johan's power (meaning fatigue), you're midway.
So you've got time. The biggest hurdle is that you moved your way, at a given speed, acutus moved his way at another speed, and it may be quite difficult to find yourselves again. Harder at least than "we go down, and, wonder, acutus is just right there below us!".
Horus flies somewhat, free at last, taking the air, descending a little (but not too close!) to "taste" the clouds, while you stick your tongue out.
In the end, you both agree that it should recede in a couple of hours at most... Unless it's bolstered by magic, of course (dice roll for Horus, Amber for you: If you're competent enough, you succeed, else, you fail). But Horus can feel it fading already, although it's not noticeable at all by Johan.
What do you do until then? Do you try to keep up your route?
(Note: IMO, this is a real problem, but also an occasion for you all to be clever about it and solve it. I'm also happy to see Lucas take the lead on this and try things. If this bothers you, we can skip it, like "2 years, 1 twilight and 10 warping later, you finally manage to find each other")
"I think we have to stick to the path," Lucas opines. "It's the plan we had in place, and it's probably what Acutus would do. It still means he could be miles away. But at least if we're both trying to travel the same route, the distance between us should be less than if one of us were to stop and the other go on, or worse, if one of us should break off in a different direction."
"Of course, once this storm ends, the real question is how do we find Acutus again? I can see two ways of accomplishing that. Simply put, we go to where he is, or we draw him to where we are. As for the former, we have an arcane connection, so we could try and use that to hone in on his location. The problem with that is that Intelligo is not my best technique. I could manage the spell, but not reliably. Worse, once the storm ends, it's entirely possible that Acutus will surface, take human form again, and tread water while he renews his parma. If that happens, I doubt we'd be able to find him with a spell."
"That leaves drawing him to us. And for that, I propose we take a page from Exodus." He smiles. "How did the Lord guide Moses and Israelites through the desert? With a pillar of smoke during the day and a pillar of flame at night.[sup]1[/sup] Now, I'm not so sure about us managing an Intelligo spell that can break through Acutus's parma. But I'm certain we can manage a pillar of smoke and a pillar of fire. And since we can do this in the air, it'll be visible for a long, long way. It should draw him near. And if I have Horus keep watch on the surface, we have a good chance of finding him. Horus can spot a mouse from thousands of feet in the air[sup]2[/sup]; he can spot a shark on the surface of the sea. Besides, once he sees our signal, Acutus may send up a signal of his own so that we can find him."
"Granted, our signal will be visible to everyone, including our enemies. But we're still days away from our destination. If they have spies out this far, then they know we're coming and our chance for surprise is likely destroyed anyway. Besides, they're undersea dwellers. They'll probably be focused on the surface of the sea looking for us. They might not even think to look in the sky."
"So what do people think? Is it a workable plan?"
[hr][/hr]
[sup]1[/sup] In retrospect, given his upbringing, I should have given Lucas some Theology and Dominion Lore.
[sup]2[/sup] In addition to Keen Eyesight and a +3 Per, Horus can cast Eyes of the Falcon (which is just Eyes of the Eagle renamed).
[color=red]I was able to overhear Johan's smack talk. glare [color=red]The lughead has a point though. We always jump to the most magical solution to everything and calculate how to max out our spontaneous potential. And we are jumping ahead of ourselves. Johan knows the seas. He can find the island. If something goes wrong with that, I can contact Acutus in a couple of days. Presuming he has hit land, I can send my cat to go find him. Cidito can either fetch back an AC to his location, or we can do as you said and make a flashy sky show. Acutus can guide me though Cidito how to find him.
So I say let us be patient. Time destroys all things, including apparent obsticles.
Lucas slaps his head and then laughs. "Of course, you're right," He says. "Here we are debating how we can use these arcane connections to find Acutus and send him a message, and the answer has been staring us right in the face the whole time. With this connection Cidito, or any of us, could leap right to Acutus and pass on the message in person, then leap back here. Granted, Acutus might be underwater when we do it. But with your Lungs of the Fish spell, we needn't worry about that too much. And if we try it near about dawn or dusk, we maximize our chance of finding him on the surface."
"And, of course, as you say, there's no hurry. You and Johan can get us to the island, where we'll almost certainly meet up with Acutus. So no sense worrying ourselves about the matter right now."
[hr][/hr]
Fixer said something about Acutus guiding us. I was assuming that between Johan and Roberto, we could find the island without Acutus. Is that not the case?
Wirth frowns
Dunno. If we were attacked, it could happen again. To him. Alone.
Yup. Finding the island was gonna be a chore, but Acutus rolled fairly well, and just happens to be lucky enough to know the way.
Johan should make a roll. Roberto is mostly useless here (No area lore, he was just a passenger, I guess).
I know, but really, when you read the texts (Both the corebook speaking of performing a 2-minutes ritual and Apprentices), even the possibility of performing a purely mental parma seems far-fetched. I prefer to allow it, by analogy with spellcasting, but have no other idea on how to adjudicate it :-/ Coincidence, this also happens to be the same penalty than a shared parma.
Ok for Acutus, so I guess whatever happens next will depend on Johan's roll and, should he fail, Lucas backup plan.
