Ceremonial Magic

[Henchman99942]

Some thoughts on ceremonial magic...

A circle can maintain a spell cast by ceremonial magic, correct? Let's say some prince has his court mages cast some spell to help him out. They cast "Reflexes" on the prince. Cost to maintain is 3. Now, as long as someone in the circle keeps paying 3 points to maintain that spell, the spell will be maintained forever. The prince can go questing and will have the benefits of combat reflexes provided nobody cancels the spell or he doesn't enter a 'no manna' zone.

Isn't this a little system breaking? Did I state the rules of magic correctly?

Suppose we attach long distance modifiers to that spell. Now if the prince goes wandering off, the spell will suffer penalties to its success. Since it was already cast, and the mages know by how much they succeeded, the prince is fine up to a distance penalty equal to the margin of success, but should he exceed that, the spell fails (poof).

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And suppose instead we change ceremonial magic (OR Slow and Sure Enchanting) thusly:

Instead of a circle, group spell casting operates like a tree. You have a head mage casting the spell. He (or she) (or it) may have up to their magery level (in number) of assistants under them helping out with the spell. BUT this one level of helpers means the mage is at a -1 to cast the spell. Now, each of the assistant mages may ALSO have assistants (up to THEIR levels of magery) This second branching of assistants adds an additional -1 to the success chance of the spell. And each of THESE junior assistants may have their own assistants... and so on... with each branching out adding a further -1. Now, this system would mean that the use of extra power for increased chance of success must be dropped, otherwise the penalty for additional branches would be meaningless. "Treeing" mages rather than connecting them in a "circle" imparts a slightly different flavor to group magic. Those entering the group to replace one of the branching mages must have magery at least equal to the one replaced, otherwise those branches under that mage would be dropped. AND because the mages connected though sub-branches must be passed onto an active mage, there must be an open slot for that new mage to join on the mage above them. So each mage acting as a branch that has further branches under them must take one less assistant than they have magery so that additional assistants can hot swap into the group. They could cast the spell without these open slots, but then the spell could only be maintained as long as the could stay awake.

If that made sense to you, then I am sorry. Your thinking processes must be as screwy as mine. My sympathies.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Henchman99942

Some thoughts on ceremonial magic...

A circle can maintain a spell cast by ceremonial magic, correct? Let's say some prince has his court mages cast some spell to help him out. They cast "Reflexes" on the prince. Cost to maintain is 3. Now, as long as someone in the circle keeps paying 3 points to maintain that spell, the spell will be maintained forever.

Unless somebody has the Solitary Ceremony Enhnacemtn on his Magery you need a minimum of 2 mages for 3 8 hour shifts per day.

Then we go to the Templates section of Banestorm which has a Job description for "Freelance Wizard".. Reflexes isn't on the list of spells for that Template but it's only 2 prereqs beyond it sow e'll lett the Prince slip apst that requirement.. Letting him find 6 wizards willing to do this is soemwhat more gnerous.

Minimum salary for the Freelance Wizard Job is $1750 a month or $10,500 for 6.

An Enchanted Item of Reflexes is 1200 energy x $33 under standard assuptions or 39,600 a little elss than 4 months of this very labor intensive maintenance circle.

I say nothing broken. The Enchntment pays off quite quickly in comparison and is rather a bit more useful in the long run. The Prince can pass it on to his heir or anyone else he wants to go questing in his stead.