Vim and Soak

I just had an interesting thought, and I'm not near my books. I'll have to search vigorously later. Can spells like Demon's Eternal Oblivion be soaked? They seem to be treated as something soakable since they behave like damage-dealing Ignem spells just doing damage as a loss of Might. However, they're not exactly dealing damage in the same sense of the word. I can't recall anything stated either way. And, for example, fatigue level losses aren't soaked. But fatigue level losses operate on a very different scale, too, more like the wounds categories than the damage itself.

The reason for my curiosity is that it would make the whole PeVi approach a little more difficult. Then you couldn't drop a powerful demon in a couple seconds with a multi-cast low-level Demon's Eternal Oblivion. You'd want to have it do at least 10 or 15 Might "damage" to make sure it got through any soak. So I really like this idea, and there's a good chance we'll want to house-rule or house-interpret things that way if they aren't or aren't clearly.

Anyway, food for thought.
Chris

Soak is for physical stamina - not for magical talent.
So I'd say no.

Nope, they are not soaked. Even if DEO and its equivalent for other realms actually HURT :smiling_imp:

Xavi

Not soaked. I strongly recommend adding one or another version of it though, WAAAY more serious opposition from things with Might.

Using:
Might pool takes damage first, then Might score, damage always reduced by Might score, if doing at least half of Might score before reduction final damage becomes 1.
Might score/5 added to soak.
Can sacrifice 1 point from Might Score to regain 1/5(or more or less depending on how dreadfully hard you want the opposition to be) of Might Pool after 1 Round.
Might Pool regenerates 1/10 of max per day up to current Might score.
Might Score regenerates at 1 point per week up to original Might score.
0 Might score doesnt equal death, just absence of Might (ie it can still act as a mundane creature but with original Might score still giving it Magic resistance and magical damage reduction ). :smiling_imp:

You REALLY dont want to go fight a dragon "just for fun" with these house rules. And "harvesting" might creatures for their Vis is now a dangerous idea.

Didn't think it was the case, but I could hope. What's everyone think of it as a house rule?

Chris

In our saga we decreased the puissance of PeVi to (level) not (level +10 [which means +2 magnitudes ...]).

But since this is theGuideline which is level + 2 [magnitudes] in Mightstripping power, the usable spell - which will need to be Range: Voice preferably - will strip only [level -10], because Voice "costs" 2 magnitudes in efficiency.
So in your saga, level 5 and 10 DEO (at R: Voice) are useless, since they strip -5 and 0 might respectively. The minimum useful level is thus 11, stripping a whopping 1 might point per casting.

I don't like the sound of that. To balance things, this must also apply for all other might stripping spells and guidelines.

Ultraviolet:
My useful combat DEO is level 5 at sight.
It destroys 2 might point.

And you read "+10 as +10 level", where i say it means "+2 magnitude", because otherwise: DEO level 5 (sight), makes 12 lost might points.
Yes, i have tried, and have been turned down by ASG :smiley:

(And i have asked on these boards the author's intention behind the "+10" and it has been confirmed to me being "+2 magnitude" )

IMS Might adds to magical Soak so removing it is a good way to kill stuff, but you still need to kill the stuff physically. Being affected by Vim, a Perdo Vim spell can also cause physical damage to a magical creature.

The dangerous creatures IMS tend to be much lower Might than what you need under official supplements.

I don't believe there was anything awry with my statement. Because +10 levels is the same as +2 magnitudes, unless we're talking below level 5.

So in the guidelines from RAW the DEO strips the amount of might equal to the magnitude of the spell - at R:Voice. Or equal to magnitude-1 (magnitudes) at R: Sight. A level 5 strips 5 might for Voice or 4 for Sight. This an example of the differences between magnitudes and levels at the low power spells, because level-5 (levels) would have resulted in 0. And a 1st magnitude -1 magnitude is 4 points.

By your house rules, the whole deal is 2 magnitudes lower. The DEO strips might equal to magnitude-2 (magnitudes) at Voice or -3 (magnitudes at Sight. The same level 5 spells strips 3 might for Voice or 2 for Sight. Which is excately as you said.

If you interprete things as us, i dont understand the "the less level for DEO is 11 at voice range" because... it's not.

But allright if you understood my point :slight_smile:

Oh yeah, when I was just calculating with levels, a level 10 stripping level-10 might is useless. But this is the wrong way to do it. It should really be level 10 - 2 magnitudes, which is 4 might stripped. Because the first magnitude subtracted takes the level to 5, and level 5 minus one magnitude is level 4.

We're in complete agreement then, in my first post I really just fell into the very pit fall I made a huge point of mentioning in my second post.
But by your method, a level 1 DEO is useless, as are level 2 (and level 3 if you only ise DEO at R:Sight). The level 4 is minimum. While by the RAW even a level 1 (at Voice) will strip 1 might.

yep, its the way we play :slight_smile:. Spells level 5 (with range you want) are the best anyway for penetration.

Yessir, low level spells are good for penetration. And for might strippers (or even damage spells) you can just recast if again and again - or even master it and multicast it - for added effects. The DEO cast repeatedly will in time - provided Pen is enough - kill any demon. Low level PeCo spells will inflict so many Light Wounds of the enemy that he'll be bogged down by the stacked yet small wound penalties, and eventually be taken down by even the lowliest attack.

But might I ask: Why do you want to make the DEO less effective than RAW? Have you had balance problems in your saga? Is it too powerful?

My previous magus was a Perdo specialist - but average in vim - and i was able to cast a DEO with 5 might points, multiple casted 3 times and a nice 40 penetration.
With the new rules, i was only able to do 2 might x3 (6, not 15), and demons had chances to disappear etc.

We also forbidden PeVim might spells to have duration (because my first spell has 1 might point lost per round during diameter..., multi casted 3 times it was a - 60 might in 2 minutes).

But my previous magus was a gameplay issue because he was too strong (Diedne magus for spont and a minor focus in death and wounds, with Pe and corpus to 19+3 at age 40 (and a nice evisceration like Philippus niger, mastered to 6 :smiley:)) and caused other StoryGuide to insert stronger might creatures. Before he left the covenant, his soul vowed to the infernal realm, he had great time killing a minor dragon by himself ...

I must add: in our saga, only might pool is destroyed. the might score isn't affected so if after a day the demon is not stripped magically from his might (with DEO) he refresh all his might for the next encounter.
This again because of my "debugging" previous magus:

i had a little spell (DEO 5) then a medium (DEO 15) and a big (DEO 30) and in 3 spells, with penetration decreasing proportionnaly..; the ASG say "the might score is not affected" to prevent the combo killing, so i had to cast multiple DEO 5 rather than DEO5, 15 and 30...

All these modifications came during the same month...and it was fairer for might creatures :slight_smile:

That's why I'd had the thought.

Of course, I do have a fun NPC for them. He's a Might 50 autumn dragon who is very intelligent and wise and is Imaginem and Vim focused. When he needs to interact he usually sends out an illusion. For defense he has PeVi effects and can fast cast them (plus he's big and tough), if you can even find him in the first place. (He's got Second Sight and Magic Sensitivity, too.) He's in place to become a roleplaying factor. Most likely, even though Might 50 is relatively puny, he could take down the magi with ease. But he's not interested in that. He wants vis to eat, and he was collecting vis taxes from the local elementalist before the PC's moved in.

But I don't want to have to have any threat have PeVi effects.

Chris

It's been demonstrated (including at least a couple times on these boards) that a few magi working together only a year or so out of gauntlet (could be straight out if their parens had organized them to work together) can take down a demon prince. That's how effective DEO is in RAW.

Plus, there's something really screwy with the guideline for DEO in raw. Compare it to the other guidelines. It's way off. The guideline for stripping Might Pool is the same level. But the DEO one also reduces the creature's penetration. So add that guideline to the Might Pool one. And then the DEO one also reduces magic resistance. Add on that guideline, too. And you get... the same level as you started with?!?!?! Admittedly, DEO might not reduce Might Pool, but when put in decent hands it should. And the DEO guideline will destroy vis, too. But still, it's way out of whack with the rest of the guidelines.

Chris

We did the same thing as you: entirely drop the DEO guideline, having DEO use the RoP:TI guideline instead. This time we wanted to keep the other guideline, too, but it's sooo strong.

Chris

Might creatures are silly easy to take down overall. Absolutely no need for anything but a multicast DEO of ANY level, because cast enough times its always powerful enough. Just have to make sure you get enough penetration, after that any DEO level is fine.

Yeah. If a few powerful archmagi can do that together with some seriuos effort, thats ok, but freshly gauntleted magi?