Two Spells.

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Thoughts/Comments Sought After! Ideas? Refinements? Criticism or Praise? Cries of Foul Twinkery? All welcome.

The Bellicose Magus

Rego Terram 30
R: Touch D: Sun T: Individual

This spell is designed to provide assistance and augmentation to the mundane fighting ability of a warrior-magus under it’s effects. It assists with the execution of mundane martial techniques and positioning of the fighter’s weapon by using Rego magic to reposition the user’s weapon. The effect is not continuously active during it’s duration and in fact is constantly activating and deactivating as needed, under ( minimal ) mental direction, to assist the swordsman with maneuvers and techniques. This gives the user the option of when and how to apply the benefits of the effect to their fighting. Mostly this amounts to the decision as to whether or not to allow the spell to directly assist with bringing a strike home or whether to merely use it to aid in repositioning/recovery and the execution of techniques. The user can thus add their Finesse score into attack and defense totals/checks undertaken under it’s effects. If the effect is allowed to fully assist and bring strikes directly to the target, then +10 may be added to damage as well, from the additional force on impact. This option however makes the strike susceptible to penetration/magic resistance as it means the effect is active on the weapon at the moment of the attack. If this option is not elected to be used, then spell is –not- active on the weapon at the moment of impact and therefore the strike is not susceptible to penetration/magic resistance. Magi skilled in fighting using this technique have been known to execute impossible seeming feats of dexterity and/or swordsmanship while under it’s effects. Requisites according to the form of the weapon in question are sometimes appropriate.

Base: 3 ( Control or move dirt in a very unnatural fashion ) +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +4 Complexity

Will Over The Self

Rego Corpus 30
R: Personal D: Sun T: Individual

This spells is designed to provide assistance and augmentation to the mundane fighting and athletic ability of the warrior-magus under it’s effects. This is achieved by fine control over the motions over the body being assisted by Rego magic, in a selective/directed way similar to ‘The Bellicose Magus’. This allows the user to control when this assistance is being applied and how. This provides the target with the ability to add their finesse score to any unarmed attack or defense rolls/checks, and to athletics oriented rolls/checks, due to the assistance of the spell. The user may elect whether, in a combative application, the spell provides continuous effect through a full attack. If this is done the attack is subject to magic resistance due the presence of the spell, yet applies +5 to the damage of the attack. More than this is possible with the force achievable with Rego magic, yet not without the force becoming great enough to risk harming the body of the user in the process. If this option is not used the attack is not resisted because the spell is not in effect during the actual attack. The feats of athleticism achievable under this effect benefit from an additional benefit, that the spell takes up the burden of the user’s weight and can indeed move the user’s entire body if somewhat weakly compared to a full ‘flight’ spell. This allows for more prolonged and intricate acrobatics or flying ‘Jedi’ leaps as it were to become possible.

Base 10 ( Control a target’s motions ), +2 Sun, +2 Complexity, +1 Additional Effect ( Rego Corpus 5: Move a target slowly in any direction you please, even if the target is unsupported. )

2

For this to be balanced, I think such spells need to be made in accordance with the rules for Craft Magic from HoH: Societates in the Jerbiton chapter. Ok, the spells are high level, but IMHO they need at much Finesse to pull off as Craft Magic does.

3

Perhaps add Co as a requisite, so that it allows "helping" the user themself to move as well? Otherwise its only the weapon that moves "superduper well". Might wreak havoc with base guideline and stuff but i think the spell level is fairly good so you might halve the modifiers for complexity to compensate(and i always did think the Te base 3 was too low anyway).
I think its fairly good as a spell. A bit hard to judge as it affects direct combat ability rather than just cause damage.

Im not sure if it should be possible to work without penetration against magic resistance though...
You would basically need a Finesse roll everytime you attack to see if you get the bonus without turning off the effect too late.

Still, i think i could allow it into a game as is.

Neat.

Hmm, now that i think of it, i came up with something roughly the same as the first spell when a player wanted an estimate on what it would take to make a magic sword a´la ichimaru Gin´s Shinsou (sword extends its length extremely on command but remains as easy to handle as if it was still a short sword). I raised the base level to 5 but aside from that, much the same:

Shoot to kill
Extends the length of the blade up to 80 times normal
Base 4, +1 Concentration, +1 Part, +1 Size
Use Frequency Unlimited +10 Levels, Item maintains Concentration +5, Linked Trigger +3
MuTe 33

Strengthened Sword
Makes the blade extremely strong and sharp, +15 to damage
Base 15, +1 Concentration, +2 Size
Use Frequency 2/day +1 Level, Item maintains Concentration +5
MuTe 36

Easy to handle
Makes the sword as easy to handle when extended as when not
Base 5, +1 Concentration, +0 Personal, +2 Size
Use Frequency Unlimited +10 Levels, Item maintains Concentration +5, Linked Trigger +3
ReTe 38

Mental Control over Item
Base 15, +1 Concentration, +1 Touch
Use Frequency 1/day +0 Level, Item maintains Concentration +5
InMe 30

Not exactly a cheap or cost effective item(to say the least!), but most certainly fun. His character merrily went around using it very effectively thereafter. :mrgreen:

4
  • Your weapon is not made of dirt, base should be +2 for metal, which you could deduce elsewhere.
  • Doing something similar to Suppressing the Wizard's Handiwork while fighting would require a Concentration roll against 12 or so. Maybe easier if planned as part of the spell, but still.
  • You either fight with Finesse or fight with Single Weapon, never both.
  • If you cast on the hilt (+1 Part), you could certainly have a good bonus to Finesse to place the sword properly for defense and maybe convince that it is free to move by your hand when you don't concentrate on it. Because inertia does not exist, magic cannot help striking without being subject to magic resistance.
  • Immediately after the hit (but that would require InTe enchant), there could by an explosion of flame, lightning, or a sawing effect coming from the hilt that would cause extra damage to non-resisting targets only.

As long as the Troupe agrees, anything is fine.

5

At quick glance:

The Bellicose Magus
Standard hermectic spells don't go on and off. Unless you've got a special virtue or dispell them, they're just active, so no dropping of the effect. Thus, this'd be better appropriate for an invested item with mom duration and unlimited uses, and would allow you to drop the magical effect when facing MR.
I may be wrong, but it seems that most spells that repose on you modiifying their effect (such as flight, telekinesis...) use Concentration duration. Of course, in an item like above, this'd be useless, but on a spell? I'd allow the duration, but say you need to concentrate to direct the sword's movements. Failing a concentration roll would put the spell "on hold", probably letting you use your weapon skill normally. Attacking, parrying, requires adapting to an opponent: A "dumb" spell couldn't do that, save maybe with Intellego requisites.
Controlling Metal is, IIRC, + 2 mag over Dirt, but I guess that's what you meant by complexity.
"Additionnal Force"... For such a high bonus to damage, you might want to add a Creo requisite IMO.

Controling the sword mentally doesn't makes you a better swordsman IMO: It shouldn't add to your stats, but allow you to use Finesse instead of your Weapon skill.
Based on this spell, I'd say... Base: 3 ( Control or move dirt in a very unnatural fashion ) +1 Touch, +1 Conc, + 2 metal, +1 Complexity (in effect, it is faster than the unseen porter) = lvl 20. This allow you to use finesse instead of your weapon skill, and replace your Str by strength 5. A lvl 25 Sun duration would allow you lapses in concentration (however, the sword is still magical for resistance purposes)

Will Over The Self
This was discussed elsewhere, but, unless I'm wrong, you can't combine 2 spells in one. So, no "+1 mag" to emulate the lvl 5 effect. This'd need another spell.
Basically, I'd allow the same "replace with finesse" thing, but no adding: This is "will over matter", no "will + matter".
More force = Creo IMO.
Same problem with the on/off: hermetic spells just don't dissapear when inconvenient (remember the shapechage spells that bypass this through a token, which also ends the spell prematurally).
To me:
Base 10 ( Control a target’s motions ), +2 Sun, +2 Complexity, replaces Brawling and Atheltics with Finesse.

6

Say what??? Unless im mistaken the damage is caused by adding force to the strike of the weapon, how ever could that become Creo???

It most certainly does! Being able to move a weapon around as you WISH instead of being restricted to how well you can move with hands alone? Thats like a heaven and earth difference!

The spell isnt going on and off, the magi´s control over the spell is choosing how it acts. Which reminds me, maybe it needs a InMe requisite?

:unamused:
So if i use ReTe to throw a stone at you, i have to add Creo to cause damage? Dont be absurd.
Rego includes controlling movement. Creo most certainly does NOT.

IIRC this isnt a must, and it makes for a much better spell.

Oh yes it is. You add mental control that add even more force, and importantly, reduce reaction time.
"will + matter" is, crudely stated exactly what the spell does.

It doesnt have to be.
"~each level... not necessarily... increase in one level of magnitude"...

Why?

7

Sigh... :unamused:
Anyway, the bigger points...

You answered your own questions:

You move the things with your mind. It makes no difference wether you touch the sword or not, since your mind determines its moves. Wish>hands, Mind>Matter, Finesse>weapon skill.
Now that I think of it, once cast, he doesn't need to hold the sword at all.

This is similar to craft Magic: Your craft skill don't enhance it, you use your mind (finesse). Now, you may want to add craft skill, or weapon skill, but, well, ymmv again

Read again: He wants the magic to be active/inactive in order to bypass MR, just like if you cast an invisibility spell that you could temporalily dispell at will, or a Ward spell that you could dispell at will and then renew, or... Hermetic magic doesn't work this way, althouth it may in your saga.

8

I agree with you about Finesse vs. weapon Ability. However, having ranks in the Craft Ability does enhance Finesse, though I would only apply it to the rolls myself, not just any total generated from Finesse. (There's some lack of clarity there.) I think it would be reasonable to take the same approach with Finesse (Finesse-3+/-adjustment based on weapon Ability). I'm sure a big draw would be getting to use Intelligence (maybe Perception, too) in place of physical Characteristics.

Chris

9

Ultraviolet

Why do you think that this is as complicated of a task as Craft Magic? And at what level of difficulty in the realm of Craft Magic?

Direwolf75

You seem to grasp the intent of the design here much better than the others.

Your suggestion to add a Co requisite to 'The Bellicose Magus' is something I considered, but discarded primarily because I was putting that idea into the second spell. Still the main benefit I see out of the spell is in how it helps to nullify the girth or weight of the weapon and fine tunes the movements when positioning. Then in the non-penetrating version the effect is temporarily released for an 'unaugmented' strike that none the less reaps the benefits of the increased speed and precision with which the fighter was able to maneuver and position for said strike. i.e. you make a block and want to swing or thrust at some other unguarded area and the spell will help you position for say the thrust and then lets go and you perform the thrust manually. Whereas, as you surmised, the penetrating version has the Rego effect 'push' the weapon all the way home and augment the force of the strike directly. Probably, as you comment, something can be said that at time the hands may have to try and 'keep up' with the 'assistance' of the magic, but really I think that is somewhat minimal personally.

Some of the complexity modifiers are for allowing this continuous direction of the spell and making it not take up all of your attention to do so. Making it 'integrate' itself into your fighting, rather than be a distraction from it. Others are for the 'on/off' nature of the spell. There 'is' precedent for exactly this sort of design in a spell in 'Treading the Ashen Path'( ArM5, pg 138 ) a spell that constantly recasts itself for it's duration. And this spell has a mere +1 'fancy effect' modifier and is of Momentary duration. I've made this spell Sun duration and added +4 modifiers for complexity. So I think I've been quite conservative in the design. Perhaps it would help to imagine instead as an effect that constantly generates lots of small momentary duration effects. Both in the amount of complexity modifiers I've added and in the mere +10 I've added to the weapon damage from the Rego effect if it is elected to have it be 'on' for the strike. Rego Terram stone throwing spells of comparable level to this spell do considerably more damage than +10, and scale up the force of the strike with increases in level. A fairly potent striking effect could be assumed to be involved in this effect as well. I chose to be conservative there for design reasons as well as simply assuming that such great force would possibly damage the weapon and that the user would find this undesirable. There is absolutely no need for Creo to generate force or damage here. Rego spells do that aplenty when moving things around.

The additional effect element in 'Will Over The Self' is simply an application of the design mechanics. +1m For an additional effect of equal or lower level. And I judged that augmented movement applied to your own body would be easier to control than augmented movement applied to a weapon, and so lowered the complexity.

The replacement of abilities with Finesse rather than augmenting them with finesse to me seems entirely too weak for all of the effort that is going into making these effects work. Think about what you could do with another set of level 30 to 40 spells? These are better than the lower level variants that would be complete replacement and the magic 'doing' all of this for you -because- they are designed to be -assists- not replacements. Caveat, you need to actually be a decent fighter or athelete to really reap the full benefits of these spells. i.e. You have to know what the best position is, how you want to jump and/or strike etc. I was considering capping the bonus points from finesse at your value in either weapon skill/brawl/atheletics etc for that purpose.

For the Terram spell it is worth noting that this, like the 'Invisible Porter' spell is something that can be cast on any weapon. i.e. A staff of wood. A bone club. Whatever. That is why it has default requisites like such spells based on weapon material. So I don't think it is appropriate to bump it up based on 'metal' being a default assumption and/or somehow adding to the difficulty of the effect. As Direwolf pointed out, that isn't a consistent application in Terram and some judgement should be applied here. Look at the Unseen Arm/Porter spells. No real restrictions on what they can lift and move around for you, is there?

10

The point is that the magic isn't 'driving' as it were. It is assisting you in doing the task that 'you' are already doing... which is why I wanted it to augment rather than replace. Otherwise a simple 'Sword Animation' spell could be much lower level and easier to do.

11

I guess it sounds too much to me like two people both wielding the same sword in an attempt to help each other, yet in this case yielding immense bonuses.

I thought the Characteristic/Soak boosts were supposed to represent exactly this. Sounds like Rego is being used for amplification in place of Creo/Muto while also providing immensely better bonuses.

Chris

12

Upon further investigation, the idea of comparing this to Craft Magic doesn't survive first contact with actually reading the rules. They're mostly concerned with what difficulty the FInesse rolls must meet in order to produce what quality of googs in how short a time.
The core of these rules do list an interesting fact: All difficulties are 3 points higher for using Finesse instead of the real ability. So in this regard, fighting using Finesse shouldn't be as efficient as using the right martial ability.
I also see this as a subject of game- and power balance. If it's too easy and efficient to fight using Finesse, you undermine the fighting grogs and companions. If Finesse can be substituted for all pphysical feats, usign the right magic, relevant abilities as a whole and the supporting (non-magi) characters using the get shafted.

In essence I prefer the substitution model to the model of adding Finesse to combat totals - this seems excessive.
A spell designed so precise as to affect the sword by magic at the start of a blow, only to stop before impact - this circumventing any MR the target might have seems potentially abusive. It shoudl be very hard, if it can even be done.

Compare it to a missile spell. Either the thing hits automatically, but is resisted. Or else it is not resisted, but Targeted.

Also, mere manipulation of the blade does not make you a good fighter, you need to read the opponent to cunter his moves. Anys such spell should IMHO have an In req.

13

Because you don't actually think 'correctly' about how your body moves.
It's quite amusing really, to see how well it works when we tell people to think like this, move like this, and they do not, but predictably so.
My sword teacher is rather good at telling people to do "this" and they don't, but predicatably so, thus they can still be taught the correct movement.
And when things speed up to realistic combat speeds... First you condition the body, then you condition the mind to direct that body, because that's much harder.

I'd argue that trying to mentally control your sword was probably counter-productive, and to try to mentally control someone else's sword would be purely a curse.
That said, I'm only a beginner - I have less than a decade of practice behind me.

14

Except the point of the spell is to augment and help the movement that your martial skill isnt capable of alone.

I know exactly what you´re talking about, but its not the same, because the spell allows you perfect assistance from the "mind" rather than the messed up version that results from the mind trying to tell the body how to move without really knowing how to do it.
Extremely difficult things that few masters of a sword can do, like radically changing sword position and attack vector halfway through an attack without loosing speed or power, suddenly it becomes totally realistic.
Give me either of these spells and ill be able to defeat anyone.
And the same probably goes for you and anyone else with just about any martial training.

15

No. I HELP my hands move the weapon with my mind.

You might argue that the full score of finesse or the relevant martial ability cant be used, but to say that only one can be used disregards that the spell ISNT a "Dancing sword" spell, but one made to assist the user.

Thats also why i dont have any real opposition to the big bonus, because an equal level spell can be used to cause damage much easier at range, safer for the magi.

Except that it does.

You´re not thinking. Yes the idea is to have the magic control over the weapon to be active or inactive, something that i certainly can say is justified based on the magnitudes added for complexity of the spell, but that isnt really the problem with it.
I have some doubts wether the spell will truly work so well this way however, my feeling is that you cant on/off fast enough or with enough perfection to get the attack and damage bonus while bypassing the MR. Although the spell should still be somewhat effective defensively against someone with MR.

16

Yup, noted and understood. However, i think you probably need it to make full use of the spell.
Otherwise the users physical ability will put a hard limit on how well you can use the effect of the spell on the weapon. I would say you get only half Finesse added to att and defend without the Corporem requisite.

Totally! There would be little reason for the spell then.

That sounds like a good idea. I was just about to suggest it when i read the above. :mrgreen:

Nice spell ideas anyway.

17

Then I'm fairly certain we do not read the above spell in the same way.

18

OK. I guess I see some of the issue. I'm thinking of the ArM5 scale, while your scale is very different. Here's why I say that (matching your duration where applicable):

Yours is a ReTe30 spell.

  1. ReTe10 is insufficient. It requires a Finesse roll just to do things in a delicate way, a way that doesn't normally require any roll for a person doing it. Between the speed at which you want to be able to use it and the coordination you want, that's probably at least +2 magnitudes, though I could see +3 being used. That would be ReTe20 or ReTe25. Typically then you still use your Finesse with a -3 penalty. Without that -3 you're probably at ReTe25 or ReTe30. There's no on-off this way, either.

  2. MuCo30 gives you +4 to soak. Your level 30 spell gives you +Finesse to Attack and to Defense. With a Finesse score of only 2 you match the MuCo spell. Finesse of 3 already beats the MuCo spell by +2, and another +2 for each rank beyond that.

  3. CrCo45 gives you +1 to a Characteristic, but only a single Characteristic.

  4. In making ArM5 it was decided that adding an Ability as a bonus to another one is generally too powerful. (Look at the virtue change with Affinity, IIRC.) Also, in this case you're using Finesse, and it is very easy to get a little extra Finesse out of Spell Mastery, too.

So, no, I don't believe, by typical ArM5 standards, adding Finesse to both Attack and Defense for a day with a level 30 spell is at all reasonable.

And, as a side note, you can basically do without any weapons skills now and replace the warriors. That means you're getting the equivalent of lots and lots of experience from the one spell. That's what's normally so balancing about the Finesse-3, though you can do a lot of things with it you are rarely as good as someone who does it normally. Thus there is still value to things other than Finesse.

Chris

19

It could be argued that since Puissant Ability and Great Characteristic are both minor Virtues, a CrCo45 might exists for a +3 to Ability. But it would be under a similar restriction, namely getting the +3 only if your score is 0.

Are there spells equivalent to blessings or minor Virtues? That might help also.

20

Puissant Ability is +2.

Even then, Finesse trumps +2 very quickly.

Chris