Unstructured Caster optimization

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Pirates Rule!

Kallista, I invite you to take a look at Roberto of Flambeau, over in the Novus Mane PbP. He is the second magus listed. Though I feel Formulaic magic is far superior, being able to spont is more superior than no sponting. Roberto is an example of a magus who has his spells meticulously selected and mastered. He has only relyed upon a spont casting like two or thee times in his career so far. He can do it, but he prefers his mastered fprmulaics. He is Creo-Ignem focuses, but not so much that he foolishly ignores other art combinations. He is no one-trick pony, but he does have his field (he can cast 5 Pilliae of fire with a Penetration ranging from 30+ to as high as 50+, and he could do this straight out of gauntlet!). But he minds his defenses, his Intellego, and makes for a well oiled machine.

Formulaic spells are like carefully chosen specialized tools. Sponts are improvosation. It is best to have both, but if I had only one it would be the toolbox.

22

But a ninja pirate... now thats something.

1 Like
23

Dead pirates cant rule much of anything. :smiling_imp:

Then i doubt you play varied situations much. Not being able to come up with an improvisation quickly is death on a silver platter much of the time.

I can say this, in the games we have run, even if the spont only characters tend to be much weaker overall than formulaic only ones, noone any longer creates PC magi that cant do sponts, because they just cant handle alot of situations very well.
As long as their known spells apply, they´re superb, but as soon as they run into something where they need to do something else, they´re lost. Last game that had a formulaic only character, he never went anywhere alone.

Not sure about that if its about a direct fight between the two, but overall, being able to handle any situation, being able to do spont casting is often totally crucial, because its simply impossible to predict everything you may need to do.

24

But dead ninjas are still silent.

As far as the original poster goes... Unstructured caster is horrible. Don't do it. It's too much of a drawback. Everyone needs at least one thing they do well.

25

Hi,

Sponts are good!

But it is possible for a character to be spontaneous without having spontaneous magic.

Is the Gentle Gift the most powerful and flexible Major Hermetic Virtue of them all? Sure, you can try to cast that perfect spell on the shabby old hermit you meet while exploring the site of some saint's martyrdom--or you can talk with him. :slight_smile:

What about Inspirational? Connections? Free Expression? :slight_smile:

(Oooh, Free Expression. "Sure, you'd defeat me at Wizard's War. But if it comes to that, I'll hide behind my parens' skirts, in her sanctum. While you spend a month burning my lab and salting my garden--I will compose songs about you: lampooning your string of failed love affairs, questioning your honor, suggesting that all those dead grogs are your fault. You will be remembered in the Order for centuries after you are dead. Even mundanes will know the songs, and for the rest of your days you will not be able to spend an evening in a tavern without eventually hearing about your fumbling stupidity.")

Being able to go out alone versus with backup seems more a matter of character design than spont expert versus non-spont.

In the most recent AM game I played in, for example, my character was a spont expert. He was even permitted to have Withstand Casting work with LLSM, allowing him to cast spells of remarkably high magnitude, losing only one fatigue in the process, maybe two. He even has Luck of Heroes to ward off botches. But.... he wouldn't do all that well alone, and as the captain of a ship really wasn't designed to.

Conversely, a different player put together a character with a wide variety of formulaic spells and no special ability with sponts, allowing him to get to trouble, evaluate trouble, deal with trouble, cause trouble and if necessary, run away from trouble.

The first character has access to a lot more magic--and has cast the highest level spells in that game. But he isn't the most powerful. An array of formulaic spells that can be cast reliably, repeatedly and at full strength has a flexibility all its own.

More important, real flexibility is about attitude more than spell selection. My character has Strong Faerie Blood and corresponding interests and obsessions that limit him. His character is a Tytalus, ready for anything. And it is clear to me that both characters were consciously designed to be as they are.

Speaking of design choices, I suspect that Diedne Magic is deliberately designed to be sub-par. There will always be Diedne-loving tree huggers who will want to be Diedne no matter what is in the virtue. Why? Because they are Diedne-loving tree huggers.

But great characters have definite strengths and definite weaknesses. A character without limits is an amorphous, thematic blob. A character who is equally good at all magic is less interesting than a character with a focus, who has to be clever about how he uses what he's got. Sure, you can laugh at that Flambeau with lots of Creo, lots of Ignem and not much else (though a big Creo lets him cast impressive CrCo, CrTe, CrMe....) as he struggles to solve all his problems with Creo and with Ignem, but the stories that emerge will probably be more interesting than those about a magus who sponts everything equally well.

Worse, a virtue that makes spontaneous magic too good allows a single character to crowd out all those characters who excel at one thing.

I have written and posted three or four versions of Diedne Magic that I think are more suitable, but when creating a character I use this one to remind me "Whoa! I know you're tempted to be a tree hugging Diedne-loving diabolist, and I know you want lots of spontaneous magic so you can keep your options open, but maybe the game designers are trying to tell you something."

Anyway,

Ken

26

I'm engaging silly ninja vs. pirates debate and I'm quite aware of the seriousness of the matter. (so please take the following with a grain of salt.)

The fact that you are bringing up combat as a benchmark for comparing the virtues is at least permissive evidence that you either don't know the system or haven't thought about it.

One does not combat magi with spontaneous magic, it fatigues you, it can't penetrate, it doesn't Multicast, and it is susceptible to being counter spelled. The best tool for hurting another magus is a mastered formulaic spell. Baring that it is a formulaic spell, barring that it is an enchanted device (actually if you don't house rule the charged device penetration calculation that would be the first choice),... formulaic magic is just a step or two above poking with a sharp stick.

spontaneous magic is used for all of the things that you don't have formulaic spells for; stopping stampeding cattle, transforming stone bridges into piles of crocodiles, creating enough apples to fill a cathedral, finding the location of the bishop's personal letter to his lover and so on. for all of these tasks that a character might actually choose to use spontaneous magic for life linked will give magnitudes of effect that Diedne magic won't and who cares if you have to spend an extra few minutes regaining your fatigue levels.

27

Hi,

Yup!

And if you want those back quickly, enchant an item that allows a grog to cast The Gift of Vigor, targeting you.

Anyway,

Ken

28

ie everything that is useful :stuck_out_tongue:

Repairing your Lab without an Artisan. Making Concrete. Fixing your Armor. Finding a lost child. Making someone forget they saw you. Getting ... er seducing someone. Detecting Vis, seen some characters that couldn't detect the nature of Vis after fatigue.

Apprentice to the Master Smith
"What's this?"
"That's a hammer."

15 years later.

"What's this?"
"YOUR HAMMER!"

29

No.

In all that activities, risk of being dead/inconscious is hazardous.
Diedne magic is fresh.

Combat, searching lost artifact...

What you want: being fresh when the others are exhausted (or dead/KO if LLSM and botch) is the thing for me to say you are better with sponts.

And being Diedne doesn't mean you haven't formulaic magic, and a focus.

You want to blablah about it? fine. Blablah it then.

But if Diedne has a 3points flaws free there is a good reason, no? Don't think it's because it is the only 6virtues points?

Maybe you need to be used to minimaxize characters to see it.

My diedne character is not maybe the BEST in a domain (even if in killing, i have no equal for a 30 years magus), but when i need to cast 10 spont spells in some situation, when i haven't the formulaic (and this is simply NOT possible to have all the formulaic you need, because you can't foresee your needs), i can do it without being exhausted.

Being fresh when the others are tired is the key of the power.
And i don't speak about LLSM botch which mean at least unconscious, if not dead.

And about battle...
i just have to wait the LLSM /others are tired. Casting formulaic in combat may mean -1 fatigue if levle -10 on the roll. If i can help you with that, i'll do.
And all your formulaic would be useless if you fight my little tricks.

And when you will be exausted, i'll simply send a grog to kill you.

Diversity is the key, diversity is spontaneous and a lot of spell, and that is diedne.
Not the best magi, the best in spont.

PS: and "they lose"... even the best warrior lost against 12. Above all if your diplomates/leaders were trapped when the war begins...
But 12 don't act as 1 if you aren't the best. Think about it.

30

:laughing:

Ninjas are so unnoticeable, maybe its NOT dead, you just think it is. :wink:

Unstructured caster is nasty yes, but sometimes it can make for a fun character anyways.
Combine with Rigid Magic and Poor Formulaic Magic for example. Thats fun. :wink:

Are you trying hard to be offensive or does it just come naturally?

Ah, so you agree that good spontaneous casting is far superior to formulaic then. Funny i thought you said the opposite just before.

31

Hi,

As they say in D&D 3.5, it's an Extraordinary Ability.

FWIW, some of my favorite people are DLTHDs. That's not avoidable in the Bay Area! Hell, I might be one myself.

That's a wicker man argument! (A wicker man argument is what DLTHDs use instead of a straw man argument. :wink: )

Spontaneous Magic under existing rules plays second fiddle to Formulaic Magic. A virtue that makes spontaneous magic too good (a virtue that IMNSHO does not exist, canonically), allows a single character, etc.

Anyway,

Ken

32

It isn't that they excell, its that they hog the limelight. I see a lot of spont crazy magi that like to show off with barely effective magics. Even if someone else is better suited to the task, they like to show off that the can also do something.

As far as your comment to Ken about eing offensive, I say to you this...
There is no such thing as a Diedne magus, and there never ever was
Being offended at an insult against a fictional creation is a needless waste of emotional energy. Believe me, I learned that with all the Flambeau bashing. I call the Diedne baby eating infernalists. That is the way I call it in games I run. They practiced human sacrifice. End of story.

33

Hi,

Yeah! That's exactly what we, er, they want you to think!

That uncomfortable miasma emanating from my apartment? No, that's not an Infernal Aura, that's a real miasma.

Anyway,

Ken

34

Hi,

Yeah, spend a season just crafting Charms, hundreds of them, and add Faerie Magic to almost all spont totals. Add three or four Charms to the collection every season. :slight_smile: Losing the Charms would suck, but it takes only a season to regain many of them.

Anyway,

Ken

35

Except the insult was thrown at the players.

Just like you, good company for you then i expect.
End of story.

And Ovarwas argument flipflops madly between "its not good enough" and "its so good it takes over everything", which is just stupid to claim both at the same time.

36

Hi,

That wasn't Ovarwa's argument.

Anyway,

Ken

37

All the information on optimizing spontaneous magic is great! I never really thought of how theurgy could be used for spontaneous magic before, I'll have to read more about that.

~
Wow, this started quite the discussion. I see there are many people on both sides of the spontaneous/formulaic superiority argument, with compelling points for both.
Off topic, I look forward to posting more on this forum!

38

Good to see someone is getting something useful out of it! :stuck_out_tongue:

And about sides, of course formulaic is better, but if you´re restricted to just either, then spontaneous is just soooooo totally better to have.
Unless of course you play "dungeoncrawl" D&D style where a handful of preset spells is all you need because you´re not really doing much else and "encounters" only happens in very restricted ways.

39

Hi,

I'd want all of these, in order of desirability...

  1. Charm Magic + Faerie Magic. You can add one, maybe two magnitudes to the casting total of most sponts, including the botchless, non-fatiguing, divide by five kind. And if you have an Arcane Connection, you can accumulate some awesome Penetration, normally the Achilles heel of spontaneous magic. And you get other benefits too.

  2. Spell Foci. Add one Form or Material Bonus to a casting total. This gives you 3 to 7 levels to any spont. Not bad! Just make sure your SG lets you take it without the recommended Flaw of the tradition, and you probably want to avoid its Major Virtue too.

(At this point, you have spent 3vp. You are festooned with little knickknacks and talismans and what-have-you. You probably look like a Hedge Wizard's Hedge Wizard. But you can cast almost any level 10 spont without fatigue and with no risk of a botch! In a church, in a tree, fast-cast... no fatigue, no botch! Again and again and again! Wow! You can also add those levels (five to fifteen total, I think) to fatiguing spont totals. It takes Diedne Magic a long time to catch up to this, though Diednes don't need to worry about charms and foci.)

  1. Life-Linked Spontaneous Magic. Because you don't want to wait until youre an archmagus to add three magnitudes into your worst TeFo combination.

(At this point, you can spont level 25 spells with no xp in Arts if you're willing to take risks. 6vp spent.)

  1. Luck of Heroes. Because even if you don't have LLSM, you will be throwing around more stress dice than your sodali. Botches suck. This is an expensive virtue for what it does, but you need it. Requires SG permission, or possibly initiation.

(9vp spent on four virtues, most of which even help non-spontaneous magic. Note that no one wants to kill you yet.)

A few ways to go from here, each with its own advantages and disadvantages for a spont 'specialist' and I present them unordered:

a) Shapeshifter or Heartbeast. If you're casting spells that fatigue you, wouldn't you like two or three more levels of fatigue? This doesn't play perfectly with #1 or #2, since you only get the fatigue as a boar or a bear or a horse or something like that, but you can shift form to recover fatigue faster, which is nice. Plus you get a nifty shape or three. Find out whether your charms and foci get to shift with you. If you suspect that your SG will continually attack your charms and foci, do this instead of #1 and #2. 1vp or 3vp.

b) Silent & Still Magic. This mitigates 15 points of casting score penalties. Of course, it's not useful if you don't need to cast silent and still. Or if you expect mostly to cast fatigueless and botchless (15/5 = 3; whoop de doo.) Plays well with (a). 3vp.

b') Performance Magic. Might play well with #1. 1vp.

b'') Unbound Tongue. Plays well with (a). 1vp.

c) Cthonic Magic. You get some nifty ranges and durations. You can use Infernal vis without a problem and cast in those pesky Infernal Auras. Oh yes, and you add your lowest Art to any casting score or lab total that you want. Infernally tainted? That's legal under the Code, and it's better than being a suspected Diedne, except in a DLTHD saga :wink:. 3vp

d) Diedne Magic. Gotta take it sometime. Does nothing for botchless sponts. For botchable sponts, you can choose either to lose a fatigue or add twice your lowest art to the casting score. The most powerful magi in the Order want you dead but don't realize it, and if you actually use this power often enough, they will realize it and kill you, possibly without warning. 3vp.

e) Names of Power + Invocation + Consummate Talisman. Spend seasons to learn a bunch of NoP. These are Formulaic Spells that you will probably have to research yourself. Invocation lets you add them to appropriate casting scores up to your Magic Theory, but this takes extra casting time and possibly stress dice. When your MT reaches ten, you might get a magnitude out of this. Consummate Talisman lets you add these to your talisman, to circumvent the casting time and stress dice. 7vp.

Characters...

  1. 1+2+3+4+b'+gentle gift. 13vp. A hedge wizard whose performances pack a punch. Welcome everywhere. Add Craft Amulets and make him Jewish?

  2. 3+4+a+b. 10vp as a Bjornaer, 12vp as a shapeshifting ExMisc. As a boar, you have 3 extra fatigue levels for LLSM!!! No words or gestures. One or two vp left.

  3. 1+2+3+4+c. 12vp. Aligned with Magic, Faerie and Infernal for good bonuses most places. Mmm, vis. Mmm, ranges and durations. 2vp left.

  4. 1+2+Mythic Blood+Flawless Magic. 9 vp. For the magus who doesn't botch and never tires. Add Cautious Sorcerer and/or Mastered Spells for overkill. LLSM mixes poorly with becoming a Daimon, as does any spell that costs fatigue, so if you have aspirations of that kind for your character, this is the way to go.

  5. 1+2+d+Mythic Blood+Flawless Magic. 12 vp. Like 4, but with better fatigueless sponts. If you manage to become a Daimon without being killed, you can reveal your Dark Secret to those insignificant Tremere. Mwahahaha. The big benefit here is fatigueless sponting divided by two, which you want as a Daimon.

  6. 1+2+c+d+Mythic Blood. Sort of like 5, with better casting scores for all spells rather than Flawless Magic.

  7. 1+2+3+4+a. 10vp or 12vp. Spont in human form and shift to an animal to recover fatigue faster.

  8. 1+2+3+4+a+b+c+d. 19vp or 21vp. Initiate lots for supreme spont mastery.

  9. d+e+Major Focus in Spirits+Hermetic Theurgy. 14vp. Diedne Magic works better here, because if you're going with Invocation, you want to divide by 2. (But I find Theurgy and sponts to work against each other. A Theurgist's big advantage is the ability to cast spells that are inherently flexible. See #10.)

  1. c+Hermetic Theurgy+Major Focus in Spirits+Theurgic Familiar+Puissant Magic Theory. 9vp. This guy gets to add his lowest Art twice to every spell he casts, and his familiar too! He doesn't care much about sponting, because just about every spell he casts either gets the benefit of FFM or is already an Invoke the Spirit of (Form) spell. If you really want to play a Theurgist (and even optimized, they're not optimal), this is a good base. An Ex Misc Theurgist has 5 extra vp to work with, and a regular magus has 2vp. How to pad him out? Some combination of: Book Learner, up to two Arts Affinities, up to two Puissant Arts, 1+2, Summoning (the Goetic Art), Puissant Realm Lore(Magic), Puissant Realm Lore(Infernal), Cyclic Magic(seasonal; this is for the lab bonus). As a Summoner or with 1+2, this guy can take Weak Spontaneous Magic yet still be a spont specialist!! Think about it.

Anyway,

Ken

40

Is a vp total of more than 10 (11 if the house virtue is counted) not a little on the high side?