can you eat/drink/shower during Concentrate maneuvers?

[bocephus]

How many people have sit infront of a TV eating only to realize a couple hours later that they ate everything there instead of stopping at some point.

Shower might be a little much, and lets be honest you should be able to go 24 hours without a shower. Just make part of the ritual prep taking a shower....

Eat and Drink can literally be made part of the ritual. See Catholic Mass for one such example. I don't see those activities as problematic.

However going to the bathroom could raise some uncomfortable or unpleasant complexities. Perhaps this was one of the origins of fasting before a long ritual (as much as creating that euphoric state)?

It's actually an interesting thought exercise, I cant think of any time I have ever heard of this being addressed.

[Lovewyrm]

Maybe it depends on what the bathroom break is for.

I tried concentrating on something earlier for a personal test, and it was pretty easy for a water break, don't know if it would be easy for the alternative.

Good point on the fasting, by the way. Would make quite a bit of sense.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by Lovewyrm

Maybe it depends on what the bathroom break is for.

I tried concentrating on something earlier for a personal test, and it was pretty easy for a water break, don't know if it would be easy for the alternative.

Good point on the fasting, by the way. Would make quite a bit of sense.

HEhehehehe I have this vision of a priest sitting on the porcelain throne softly singing along, just hoping that he's going to be done before its time to run back out and take his next lap with the censor ....

I know we're actually talking about ritual meditation, but that image was just too funny.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Lovewyrm

Just treat it like somatic and verbal spell components, maybe?
If you can wave a wand around precisely enough (because you're concentrating) then you can probably direct a piece of bread to your mouth and take a bite every now and then.

But if the ritual requires speech then...having your mouth full is bad.

I guess that's the thing .. if you could cast this spell without needing to speak or do gestures then I guess you should be able to do gestures/speaking for some other purpose.

But if you're low-skill and require those elements you wouldn't have the spare mouth/fingers for doing those elements.

[Rolando]

I think, or as a GM rule, that long duration rituals are complex affairs that may include "breaks" of some type. Like slow and sure enchanting, it is an 8 hour activity every day, rituals include a lot of activities beside simply concentration and meditation, so there may be breaks in the ritual.

On the other hand as a GM I may rule a certain ritual as a continued meditation and trance affair that taxes the caster(s) tremendously and not eating, drinking or sleeping is part of the difficulty of the spell.

So, in my opinion, the game doesn't define anything in particular because defining anything will make it more of a game and less of a story element. GM's have a job to do and the rules are just a guide. The game part is you need to invest 24 hours doing no other game stuff, that is clear, the rest is how you want to envision the ritual to make the story a better one.

Have fun, make it interesting.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Rolando

I think, or as a GM rule, that long duration rituals are complex affairs that may include "breaks" of some type. Like slow and sure enchanting, it is an 8 hour activity every day, rituals include a lot of activities beside simply concentration and meditation, so there may be breaks in the ritual.

M16 says Enchanting is done via Ceremonial Magic but I'm not sure if it uses all of the same rules.

M18's "Interruptions" rules clearly allows you do cast other spells in the middle of a mage-day via the "Slow and Sure" method, at a -3 penalty for maintaining concentration on the enchantment. I'm not sure if that -3 is meant to apply just during the 8-hour period or the entire 24 hours though.

Presumably any time you spend casting other spells wouldn't contribute towards those 8 hours. Like to commit time towards the 8-hour mage-day you'd need to be taking a concentrate maneuver, but you could spread those concentrate maneuvers out?

I don't imagine you could do something like "one second on, one second off" to constantly cast small spells though... I'm thinking maybe something like you need a consecutive hour or else if you get interrupted on the 59th minute all those 59 minutes are wasted?

Or maybe something like those 59 accumulated minutes evaporate at a rate of 1-minute-per-second until you resume concentration to build back up to that 60-minute increment when you can file a successful step?

I don't know if you'd be able to cast spells (at -3) via the "Quick and Dirty" method though. It seems like possibly a benefit of using the Slow and Sure method?

If we did allow this to be done for Quick and Dirty it seems like maybe we should allow it for Ceremonial Magic in general (even non-enchantment) which doesn't seem like too broken a benefit since you're already casting at 10x the usual required time.

Especially if you have a rule like "every second you stop concentrating you lose 60 of the concentrates you've build up". That might even be too extreme... maybe something like a 2:1 instead of 60:1 loss ratio?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by gmillerd

You are not in "bullet time" for 86400 actions I can only assume. If you are, I hope you aren't playing with fatigue loss rules.

If you are forced to use an active defense, knocked down, injured, or otherwise distracted before you finish, you must make a Will-3 roll. On a failure, you lose your concentration and must start over.

I think modest eating is a long way away from the conditions cited that are Will-3.

Also you can take a Step while using the Concentrate maneuver.
If you can walk at 1y/second I think you can do routine maintence and other tasks that require almost no thought.
I might require a Will roll for a relaxing shower or eating a good meal that could distract you however.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Also you can take a Step while using the Concentrate maneuver.
If you can walk at 1y/second I think you can do routine maintence and other tasks that require almost no thought.

Basically thinking you could swap out a step for other step-like things, like I think in some cases you can do downard posture changes in place of a step.

Heck, couldn't you even Quick-Draw a weapon as long as it didn't fail and force you to take a Ready instead of a Concentrate?

Plus there's also parrying, which I always thought would make sense to reflect making hand gestures (like steps seem to reflect leg ones as higher skill let's you step during concentrate maneuvers)