Who is Ars Magica 6E's Audience?

[Tugdual]

@Richard Love

@Tugdual

• When MR: a 50-50 to penetrate means you are doing half "damage", drop a magnitude and you'll do full "damage". (with Soak, maybe +10 damage half the time is better than +5 damage every time, but that's the border case)

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. You either penetrate or you don't? So a +1 to penetrate is always useful, if you are in the situation that a die roll is going to make a difference to penetration.

For some reason you know CrIg20 PoF and a boosted CrIg25 PoF. Would you rather:

• do +15 damage all the time (even a roll of 0 penetrates)
• do +20 damage half the time (you need 5+ to penetrate)

@Tugdual

• Sponting would require 2-points changes but you don't care because success is in steps of 10.

You have a Casting Total of 16 and are trying to cast a Mag. 2 effect (ignoring stress die effect) you need a roll of 4+ [(16+4)/2 = 10], so have a 60% chance of success.

I have a Casting Total of 17 and are trying to cast a Mag. 2 effect (ignoring stress die effect) I need a roll of 3+ [(17+3)/2 = 10], so have a 70% chance of success.

And Casting Total of 15 still has 60%, so a +1 is useful half the time.

The other point here is you cannot fail a Mag. 1 effect and cannot succeed a Mag. 3 effect (unless you explode). Using ceremonial, MMF, or dropping a magnitude by touching the target or any other mean is way more efficient than getting a +1.

So in theory is doesn't do much, but in practice... you surely know better than I do