OOC Chat

[Keehnelf]

Thanks! The surgery went well and she's recovering at home now--but the support in recovery has been taking a lot more time and energy than anticipated. I'm just logging in now to get us back on track here--expect something within the next couple of hours!

[AleBelly]

Hi - on vacation that is keeping me busier than expected. I hope to post here again soon.

[Keehnelf]

No worries!

[Grognardsw]

Unacceptable!

[Grognardsw]

Here is Cugel’s spend of his 5 xp from Spring 1221:

Charm +1 to 3
Guile +1 to 2
Brawl +1 to 4
Latin +1 to 1 (with scribe Shabsai Weil)
Sword +1 to 1

[Keehnelf]

Non-magical-art abilities cost 5x for leveling up: so 5 pts in one of those would get you to level 1--sorry for the confusion. It's a weird quirk of the xp system that things progress at two different rates.

[AleBelly]

What is the campaign ID # for this game? Will link Gertrude's roll to it...

[Keehnelf]

Right!

1063

[Grognardsw]

Sorry popping in quick - work project draining- should post this weekend - going to bed

[Keehnelf]

No worries at all

[Grognardsw]

I was wondering what level our magus equates to in level to AD&D 1e? They don’t seem first level, more like 5-6?

Arduin knows nine spells, which I just realized and still need to look up. Can those be cast any time?

He’s done some back-story spell casting (Charm, magic mouth) before I realized that. I admit I’ve been treating this like a story game, with mechanics applied by you and rules read about when needed. The rule book is so big.

[Keehnelf]

Sure, those are good questions. I would definitely recommend looking over the magic rules if nothing else, to familiarize yourself with some parts of them, but here's a bit of a big-picture look:

Magic in Ars Magica has strong boundaries that in many ways are much more constrained than they are in D&D. Bringing people back from the dead is literally impossible for magic (though not for the Dominion/God). Real healing requires the expenditure of Vis or (often and) a transfer of life essence from the caster to power it. Big effects like you see in D&D type fantasy are very difficult to manage. As a result, it's hard to make comparisons.

The important thing to remember is that for magi in Ars Magica, magic is a slowly-mastered tool rather than a magical power. So at first you start out only able to do certain small tasks really well, or certain more difficult tasks spottily or poorly, but as you advance more and more tasks become routine and more powerful things are unlocked.

The beginning point of a magus in this game is probably only barely equivalent to a level one magic user in D&D, in terms of most measures you would usually use. Here's how you can guide your thinking:

Having a level of 5 in two Arts that you'd want to combine (like Creo - "I create" - and Ignem - "fire", for a fireball-type effect) gives you a reasonable chance of successfully casting a Level 20 spell you know, but it's fairly likely to fatigue you to do so. This would be the equivalent of expending a spell slot (more or less). The level 20 CrIg spell like "fireball" is called "Pilum of Fire" and it does +15 damage to a single target, which would be enough to more or less incapacitate a single normal-sized individual who possessed no ability to mitigate the damage via armor, dodging, parma magica, etc. That's pretty strong, but after the first casting, all of your spells from then on are harder to cast because you'll be suffering from fatigue from casting such a strong spell, and the effect will accumulate, even though you haven't exhausted your magic, per se.

This all assumes you're casting in friendly conditions, too. Otherwise, the casting gets harder (penalties to casting checks, like for the aura rating) and becomes more likely to create side effects that you don't want.

So magi typically rely on weaker spells that they know they can cast without trouble, and avoid casting spells in challenging circumstances unless they have to, as they accumulate power. Vis can also empower spells of a matching type, in a pinch, to make them easier to cast but also trickier to control as you release magical energy.

All of this adds up to ars magica wizards starting out mostly casting cantrip-level magic except in their areas of close specialization, slowly building their skills, and using the full capacity of their arts mainly under tightly controlled, safe conditions for exceptional purposes--or in moments of dire emergency when the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.

It we take Arduin as our example, his strengths are Creo (6), Muto (6), Rego (6), and Imaginem (10), so he can do a lot with images, illusions, and senses--manipulating others, creating illusions, creating disguises and seemings. That's subtle stuff and fairly powerful at a low level. His base spellcasting roll for any of these areas would be 1d10 + 19 (6 for technique, 10 for form, 3 for intelligence), meaning he has an okay chance of casting a level 25 spell without fatigue under controlled conditions. Those are strong effects--but to be effective, he'd want to bide his time and cast carefully, in a pre-meditated way, at a level careful about his surroundings. A level 25 Imaginem spell would allow disguising an object as a different thing using every sense at a distance, or only two or three senses from close up, for a limited duration. That's a strong effect, and nearly at the limits of his powers right now.

Also, this is for casting spells you know. If you're just making up a magical effect on the fly, everything is TWICE as hard to cast and guaranteed to fatigue you even if you succeed. So planning and preparation is everything.

[Grognardsw]

Thanks that is helpful. So the magics you mentioned that Arduin specializes in, those are represented by the spells listed on his sheet - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ys- ... yk-Jw/edit

[Keehnelf]

Yup, exactly right. Those are specific combinations of effect/target/form using those skills that he has spent the time to commit to memory and become comfortable with. One can also "master" a spell they know, which adds extra oomph to it, but the list of spells he knows is what he has on call to most easily perform.

In his lab, he can invent new spells that are within his capacities, master spells he knows, or learn new spells from other magi's spell scrolls or notes!