Assisting with Rituals

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Kai
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Assisting with Rituals

Unread postby Kai » Fri May 11, 2007 12:35 pm

This is the standard ritual magic tech we're working with right now:

[Ritual Magic=4] Collaboration (X MP/TP) - If a caster doesn't want to pay the full MP/TP cost of a spell (either from preference or need), he can enlist other mages who will split the MP cost with him, usually equally but not necessarily. For the purposes of damage or MATK, roll using the stats of the caster with the highest total ritual or relevant magic-school rank. Other casters are essentially functioning as MP batteries/conductors for the more skilled ritualist. Casting time is equal to (MP cost*) - (the leader's ritual ranks) in hours.
*MP cost paid by a single mage. If the MP is not being shared equally, then pick the highest cost a single mage is paying.

One thing that's interesting about Philsys as it stands is that you don't need to have a MAG score to have MP. Technically.

My question is this: Should it be possible to use that MP for something?

Phil suggested a mage could take it using a "rasp" sort of spell, which makes sense. Theoretically you should at least be able to suck some sort of magical resource from a non-mage.

A further question. Should it be possible for a non-mage to assist in a ritual by acting as an MP battery for the group, or is it too implausible that a non-mage participate?

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Unread postby Taiar » Fri May 11, 2007 12:51 pm

I'm not sure exactly sure when the circumstances become too specific and the idea should just be generalized to prevent a mighty confusing rule and spell, but I'll just throw down all my ideas and let you people pick it out.

As Kai mentioned, I think Phil's idea with the rasp spell is fairly appropriate. A mage or group of mages should be able to use a person's MP in a ritual casting, however because that person has no actual casting ability I feel that that should come into play somehow maybe.

Returning to the Clay Metaphor that is presented on the Wiki, maybe the time it takes to cast a spell should be more effected by the number of people helping to cast it in the same way that a gigantic statue could be completed much faster with more people molding it at once. That is to say though, that the person with MP but no casting skill can provide more clay for the mages to use, but he doesn't know how to mold it so he cannot help in the process.

The problem with this idea though is that it assumes that all mages who are helping to cast the spell are maybe somewhat farmiliar with it, or at least farmiliar with an aspect of it that would allow them to help, and I'm not sure if that is becoming too specific of a circumstance for a spell or tech of any nature. For example, let us say that there was a resurrection ritual taking place; Taiar is a mage so he should be able to help in the ritual, although he is no healer so I'm questioning whether or not he should be able to help make the process faster.

Maybe it wouldn't be out of the question for the Leading Caster to teach portions of the spell to different people or something. I dunno.

I guess that's why the original spell only called for the head mage's skills when calculating the time, otherwise you would run into this problem...

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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Fri May 11, 2007 12:54 pm

Taiar wrote:I guess that's why the original spell only called for the head mage's skills when calculating the time, otherwise you would run into this problem...


Actually, the number of people affect it as well, since the more people you have assisting the less MP each will theoretically have to pay.

I do think you raise some good points in that people assisting may need, for reasons of plausibility, some familiarity with the sort of spell being cast, if not the spell itself.

Just not sure how we could allow a non-mage to provide magical energy for a ritual, if at all.

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Unread postby Taiar » Fri May 11, 2007 3:49 pm

I had missed that tidbit about the divided cost of the spell being factored into the casting time. My bad.

Ignoring the issue of farmiliarity for a moment...

It seems like the division of MP among those who are participating in the spell does make it a tiny bit more complicated from circumstances point of view. Perhaps if we seperated the cost of the spell for the individual people who are casting it and the amount of time it would take to actually cast the spell collectively, we could include the people who have zero casting ability but still MP.

The MP cost seems to be set by those who are doing it in the RP; I don't think that there's a way we can say "MP Cost/People" and be right all the time because of the varying amount of MP each character has and what not. Of course, it's probably a good rule of thumb for the RP Community.

We could change the casting time to somehow include the MAG stat for the participating characters though, so it would accurately portray the collective innate magical skill for everyone and the amount of time saved. Maybe (Total MP Cost) - (Sum of All MAG + Leader Ritual Magic Skill) in Hours or something?

...Maybe that just makes it more complicated.

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Unread postby Spleen » Fri May 11, 2007 4:55 pm

I'd always thought that a MAG of 0 did mean an MP of 0. I could be wrong, of course, but I do remember being told this.
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Unread postby Kai » Fri May 11, 2007 4:59 pm

MP = (Magical Aptitude * 10 ) + (Intuition * 5) + (Wisdom * 5)

You can technically have MP without MAG. It's just a question of whether it does anybody any good under any circumstances they're likely to encounter ever.

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Unread postby Spleen » Fri May 11, 2007 5:05 pm

Well, yeah, I know, but for instance the boy from Secret of Mana didn't have any MP. I thought it was something like that.

It seems to me, also, that someone with no MAG would be difficult to draw MP from, even willingly. I imagine they'd fight the sensation of an energy they didn't consciously realize they had and could never use being siphoned out.
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Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Fri May 11, 2007 6:17 pm

Of course, it does provide a buffer of sorts against astral spells.

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Unread postby Archmage » Fri May 11, 2007 10:43 pm

I think the original conception was that MAG 0 did mean 0 MP, but that's not necessarily the case and the math doesn't support it. There's also no explicit rule, so people having "MP they can't use" is fine with me.

Keep in mind that MP is a measure of a person's stamina; it represents how much stretching and twisting their aura can take before it starts to suffer the effects of wear and tear. It is not actually a measure of an "energy reserve" so much as it is a measure of how much ambient arcane energy you can channel before you start risking your health to do it. As such, non-mages could still have MP, and since some spells drain MP or deal damage to MP (which spills over to HP), Nama's explanation of MP as a "buffer" for non-mages is apt.
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Unread postby Seethe » Sat May 12, 2007 3:02 pm

That leads into a question I've just come up with: Can a person's maximum MP be less than 0? If, for example, a character has a Mag of 0 and the Int and Wis total a negative number, the math suggests that the MP would be less than 0, which I suppose would result in a decrease in HP.

On a related note, on leveling up, if a character's Sta is below -1 and the d6 and d4 rolls are low enough, the math suggests that the character's HP and TP will decrease. Similarly, if the character's (Mag+Int)/2 is less than -1 and the related d4 roll is low enough, it looks like the character's maximum MP also decreases.

These things look like they make a pretty decent automatic defense against min-maxing, and they could be explained by the assumption that a character with weak mental abilities also possesses a weak aura. But was that really the intent or not? And if not, do we want to adopt it as the intent or do we want to just say that maximum MP can't be less than 0 and that HP, MP, and TP can't decrease on level up?

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Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Sat May 12, 2007 3:14 pm

It's common sense that one would NOT lose HP/MP/TP upon leveling up, and that there is no such thing as a negative MP score. This issue's been brought up several times in the past, and has been answered in such a way. As such, there is no point in bringing it up again, period.

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Unread postby Kai » Sat May 12, 2007 3:17 pm

Nama was a little harsher than I'd have been, but it's always been ruled that you don't lose on your substats when you level. It may be mechanically possible, but it's the most counterintuitive and pointless way to handle levelling ever, so it's generally not done.

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Unread postby Seethe » Sat May 12, 2007 3:27 pm

As such, there is no point in bringing it up again, period.


Good point. Everyone should always know everything that's been discussed ever, even when they didn't see the discussion and the results of the discussion weren't clearly posted in any easily viewable area, such as the actual Philsys rules page.

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Unread postby Archmage » Sat May 12, 2007 6:02 pm

The question of math involving negative substats is pretty simple; any time you get a result that doesn't make sense, the answer becomes 1 or 0. You can never gain fewer than 1 HP, MP, or TP. You can't have a move less than 1. You can't have a breath-holding capacity of less than 1 round, no matter what your STA score. Et cetera.

It's come up before in conversation with a couple people, notably Banjooie, who claimed at some point that negative stats "broke Philsys," which isn't really the case if you consider the fact that no derived substat can be negative.
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Unread postby FF Fanatic 80 » Sat May 12, 2007 9:29 pm

I don't really have much to add for how ritual magic itself should be constructed.

However, while coming up with the mechanics, I would ask everyone to keep something in mind. Try not to make this too overly complicated. One of the goals of philsys, I've always understood, is to keep things relatively simple, so things move along at a decent pace in RP's. Overcomplicate things, and it's going to tie the GM up, and stall the RP for a good while.

Just throwing that out there. =x

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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:20 pm

RESURRECTION!

How about:

One person is chosen to be the main caster, and the others are supporters. The math is relatively simple. For each supporter that has the appropriate number of ranks in the relevant skills to cast the spell on his own, add two to the effective rank of the caster. For each supporter that does not have enough skill ranks to cast the spell on his own, add one to the effective rank of the caster. Those without any ranks in the relevant skills may not support the spell in this manner. The MP cost to the caster is unaltered if the caster could not himself cast the spell (by virtue of his skill ranks), but is halved if he is capable of normally casting it. The MP cost to the supporters is one half the normal cost of the spell, rounded up to the nearest point. If the spell cast requires ranks in more than one magical skill, then supporters must choose one or the other skill to add to with their support, and of course the supporter must themselves have at least one rank in the skill they add.

Sound decent?
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