Advanced Spells (one topic)

OK, I’m going to try something revolutionary. First off, no math. I can do the math later if people are confused, but I will trust in the intelligence of the people in this discussion, so stick with just numbers. Here is a simple, elegant solution that
A. Makes all advanced spells more difficult to cast than they are now.
B. Scales.
C. Keeps high tier spells from being easier to cast which I think is generally agreed a way to make magic get more out of control than it is.
D. Easy to understand.
E. NOT a change to the base system of creating advanced spells like the current proposed change is.
F. A very minor change.

The proposed change would be simply this.

Errata – Arcanis Core Rulebook, page 346. Change the second bullet point under advanced spells to “CTN: Equal to the sum of both CTNs – 12.”

That’s it. There are very fer advanced spells you can do with CTN 17 spells, so you end up getting starting advanced spells at 24 CTN’s. Even if you had a spell with two 17 CTN’s (22 total CTN for the advanced spell) that would still be out of the rage of any 1.0 tier starting character to do with passive casting, and even a characters that fully devoted themselves to their casting skill would just be able to do that at tier 1. (you could do a 2 CTN 18 spell if you took spell affinity with that advanced spell)

Mind you, if you think this is too much, this is just slightly easier that the +6 proposal. (by 1 CTN for two CTN 17 spells) It makes advanced spells possible, but the province of casting specialists. It fits in the system, is in the range Pedro was looking for, and it’s an easy change. No wheels need to get reinvented.

Hope you like it.

That was already proposed earlier in one of the threads about advanced spells. Personally, the significant increase of CTNs for low-tier advanced spells is the one aspect of the proposed change that I hate. Advanced spells are on of the things that makes the Arcanis magic system interesting – I’d hate to see them essentially unusable until late T1 and marginally useful until late T2 (T1+T1+adaptation = ~24 CTN (current rules), ~23 CTN (highest CTN+tier+tier), ~27 CTN (CTN+6 or sum-12)).

To me, I think the rest of the advanced spell errata puts enough limits on them that an increase in CTN for low tier is unnecessary. However, one thing that did come up earlier today is that the current speed method (slowest+half fastest) ends up making a lot of advanced spells interruptible (which slows them down and makes them less action-efficient) whereas the new method (slowest speed) does not. If it is deemed that advanced spells need something more to downgrade them, I’d far rather see them made slower than given a higher CTN.

I’d hate to see them essentially unusable until late T1 and marginally useful until late T2

Actually I have a second proposal that would help with that, and make those who want to focus on advanced spells more viable.

Change the benefit of Metaphysical Understanding from

Benefit: Any time you attempt to cast an Advanced spell, you gain a +2 bonus to all Arcanum Action Skill Rolls to successfully cast the spell. Also, when attempting to counter or dismiss an Advanced spell, you gain +3 bonus to your Arcanum Action Skill Roll.

To

Benefit: Any time you attempt to cast an Advanced spell, reduce the final CTN to cast the spell by 2. This effect stacks with that of Spell affinity. Also, when attempting to counter or dismiss an Advanced spell, you gain +3 bonus to your Arcanum Action Skill Roll.

As to high tier advanced spells would be difficult to cast, my response is, good. High tier advanced spells are POWERFUL. With the addition of this change, a maxed out character would not be able to reliably (using passive) cast one of these till tier 5, and that is not a bad thing. It is a good reason to keep focusing on magic at your fifth tier. They would have a decent chance of getting it off with various talents and spells, (even better than 50/50) but there is going to be a chance for failure, and for doing two T4 spells at once when you are T4, that sounds about right.

Even with this change, it’s still a bit more difficult to cast advanced spells than it is now, not everyone will be casting them, but it is now available to those who want to focus their character on advanced magic theory. (Which I think is a very cool concept – not just any spell slinger, but someone who understands the deeper theories.)

OK, I’m going to try something revolutionary. First off, no math. I can do the math later if people are confused, but I will trust in the intelligence of the people in this discussion, so stick with just numbers. Here is a simple, elegant solution that
A. Makes all advanced spells more difficult to cast than they are now.
B. Scales.
C. Keeps high tier spells from being easier to cast which I think is generally agreed a way to make magic get more out of control than it is.
D. Easy to understand.
E. NOT a change to the base system of creating advanced spells like the current proposed change is.
F. A very minor change.

The proposed change would be simply this.

Errata – Arcanis Core Rulebook, page 346. Change the second bullet point under advanced spells to “CTN: Equal to the sum of both CTNs – 12.”

That’s it. There are very fer advanced spells you can do with CTN 17 spells, so you end up getting starting advanced spells at 24 CTN’s. Even if you had a spell with two 17 CTN’s (22 total CTN for the advanced spell) that would still be out of the rage of any 1.0 tier starting character to do with passive casting, and even a characters that fully devoted themselves to their casting skill would just be able to do that at tier 1. (you could do a 2 CTN 18 spell if you took spell affinity with that advanced spell)

Mind you, if you think this is too much, this is just slightly easier that the +6 proposal. (by 1 CTN for two CTN 17 spells) It makes advanced spells possible, but the province of casting specialists. It fits in the system, is in the range Pedro was looking for, and it’s an easy change. No wheels need to get reinvented.

Hope you like it.

this looks remarkably like something I initially proposed, but i would like to applaud your actions of defining the ideas behind it first

I like this

I think the two CTNs – 12 does seem like a good approach for the various reasons outlined.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

It’s a good approach, but does make Tier IV spells very difficult to make into Advanced Spells until Tier V (CTN’s around 39-40). If that’s cool with everyone, I support it also. It’s fair at low levels, which seems to be what everyone is looking for, and maintains Pedro’s desire for it to be equal to 2 Adaptations.

The funny thing is, that it is more difficult than method of Highest CTN + 6 at Tier II/Tier III, but this offers exact spell tracking, so if you cast spells with different CTN’s you’ll get a different Advanced CTN specific to those 2 spells and not a ‘general guideline’ by Tier.

Because I like my numbers, here are some examples (with Tier I = CTN 18 and +3/Tier)
* Note: I know spells vary in CTN, but this is just for comparison of an ‘worst’ case, individual spells will vary. Lower the CTN’s by 1-2 to approximate CTN’s of 18 + 2/Tier.

Tier / Tier = CTN-12 Method / CTN +6 / Current
1 / 1 = CTN 24 / 24 / 21
1 / 2 = CTN 27 / 27 / 24
2 / 2 = CTN 30 / 27 / 27 
1 / 3 = CTN 30 / 30 / 27 
2 / 3 = CTN 33 / 30 / 30 
3 / 3 = CTN 36 / 30 / 33
1 / 4 = CTN 33 / 33 / 30
2 / 4 = CTN 36 / 33 / 33
3 / 4 = CTN 39 / 33 / 36
4 / 4 = CTN 42 / 33 / 39

John

but does make Tier IV spells very difficult to make into Advanced Spells until Tier V (CTN’s around 39-40).

You say that like it is a bad thing, which it most certainly is not.

Just stating a fact. Everyone was upset that Tier I Advanced spells were tough to do until late Tier I/Early Tier II. I just wonder if we’ll be here again in Tier IV when folks want to immediately create Tier IV advanced spells?

John

::Glances up and remembers posting the -12 calculation:::

::Squints:::

::Raps fingers on table::

I don’t mind the fact that someone has to wait to Tier V before making an advanced spell with two T:IV spells at all..

btw, I was planing to introduce a new tier to Metaphysical Understanding

I have to say, I would be 1000% behind these two changes. It steers it back from a major rules change to a tweak. I just had a conversation with Dave. He said (and I need to confirm) that there are very few Tier 4 spells that could be actually combined together. If so, it makes that opposition a relatively minor inconvenience.