[Magic] In ceremonial magic, what's the minimum FP expenditure for the leader?

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There is usually no point to not spending high fatigue as the leader (someone can just lend energy you back up anyway), but I don't see evidence for a required minimum.

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

I can easily imagine someone with many lackeys wanting to lead a ritual casting without spending FP, especially if expecting to need that FP for non-ritual casting in the very near future. But I'm imagining a villain, mostly (the heroes are just over 10 minutes away, lackeys, let us cast this usually 1-minute spell ritually, but you will provide all the energy for it, leaving me with more energy to cast fireballs at those heroes).

There are also some niche applications where you want to cast some mundane utility spell as frequently as possible. Imagine, say, needing to contact dozens of different people with the Telepathy spell.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

I can easily imagine someone with many lackeys wanting to lead a ritual casting without spending FP, especially if expecting to need that FP for non-ritual casting in the very near future.

That's what wands of lend energy are for. If you have sufficient freedom and access to minions for ceremonial magic to be an option, your personal fatigue doesn't especially matter.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

There are also some niche applications where you want to cast some mundane utility spell as frequently as possible. Imagine, say, needing to contact dozens of different people with the Telepathy spell.

You don't want to use ceremonial magic for that -- ceremonial magic has 10x casting time, gets no cost reduction for high skill, and is capped at 15 on success. Ceremonial magic is only valuable for spells that exceed the caster's energy reserve.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Anthony

You don't want to use ceremonial magic for that -- ceremonial magic has 10x casting time, gets no cost reduction for high skill, and is capped at 15 on success. Ceremonial magic is only valuable for spells that exceed the caster's energy reserve.

These disadvantages are real, but will sometimes be outweighed by the benefits of zero FP casting. Suppose you have Recover Energy-15 and Telepathy-15. It normally costs 4 FP to cast, and takes 4 seconds. Your high skill reduces the FP cost to 3, and leaves time unchanged. The total time to cast Telepathy and rest to recover your FP is 15 minutes and 4 seconds. But if you have a limitless supply of ceremonial assistants, and you read the ceremonial magic rules as having no minimum FP contribution, you can reduce that to 40 seconds. I picked Telepathy for a reason, as this doesn't work with spells like Bless Plants or Cure Disease that have long casting times.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

These disadvantages are real, but will sometimes be outweighed by the benefits of zero FP casting.

Not as long as lend energy exists, and a lend energy wand is 100 energy.

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Not as long as lend energy exists, and a lend energy wand is 100 energy.

The accessibility of a lend energy wand is setting-dependent, however, even where both the spell and the wand exist. 100 energy may mean the wand is the cost of the stick and $100 in a setting using DF's Q&D threshold, but it's the stick plus $2000 using Magic's defaults, and higher in a setting with less common magic/more well-paid enchanters. That may well still be worth it, but it is easier to have many lackeys.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

... in a setting using DF's Q&D threshold, but it's the stick plus $2000 using Magic's defaults...

Note: DF uses the Q&D 100 energy cap; while DFRPG only does Q&D for the Staff enchantment, all other enchantments use Slow and Sure.

So in DFRPG that is a 2K$ wand. Still worth it for a Wizard or Cleric to buy and then hand around to their friends, but not as worth it for the whole team to buy one each.

[Plane]

It would be interesting to roleplay who gives what as a ritual is ongoing, how that is negotiated or felt-out.

Even if you assume everyone participating gives at least 1 FP, let's say you have 5 people trying to cast a 20-energy spell: how do you decide who gives the remaining 15?

Even if you intended to only give 1, if you noticed the others were not contributing enough, could you then compensate for that? Can you detect the input and make adjustments?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Plane

Even if you intended to only give 1, if you noticed the others were not contributing enough, could you then compensate for that? Can you detect the input and make adjustments?

This is specifically mentioned in the case of observers and you apparently involuntarily make up the deficit.

[Michael Thayne]

Huh. I hadn't really thought about the Wand of Lend Energy before, and on reflection it seems like a rather vital piece of magical equipment. Makes for an odd setting, though. Really this isn't limited to Lend Energy, the rules for magic items seem to incentivize passing around wands if you want to cast a spell repeatedly, which isn't a thing in most settings that I've seen. Possibly more items should be "mages only", at least if they aren't "always on".

[AlexanderHowl]

Lend Energy only replenishs lost FP, you need Share Energy if you want FP to help in the casting of a spell. I imagine though that a professional healer would just hire a group of street urchins to sit around and recharge her with the wand (a group of ten street urchins could generate 60 FP per hour).