Thanks. I was a bit confused trying to figure out special component and metamphora weight when I read Lairs & Encounters.
Does eldritch tradition have any direct impact on ceremony selection? Can a ceremonialist of one tradition learn a ceremony from the codex of a ceremonialist of another tradition?
Eg. Balbus, who performs ceremonies in the liturgical tradition, finds the codex of Ra-Ramses, who performs ceremonies in the chthonic tradition. Balbus uses the chance to finally learn choking grip. Can he copy it? When he performs it, does he perform it as a ceremony of the liturgical tradition, with all the implements that entails? There's nothing even a little chthonic about the way he performs it?
[quote="creases"]
Does eldritch tradition have any direct impact on ceremony selection? Can a ceremonialist of one tradition learn a ceremony from the codex of a ceremonialist of another tradition?
Eg. Balbus, who performs ceremonies in the liturgical tradition, finds the codex of Ra-Ramses, who performs ceremonies in the chthonic tradition. Balbus uses the chance to finally learn choking grip. Can he copy it? When he performs it, does he perform it as a ceremony of the liturgical tradition, with all the implements that entails? There's nothing even a little chthonic about the way he performs it?
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This is a great question. I didn't answer it in the rules but I will need to. The answer is that codexes are tradition-specific. If you want to learn ceremonies from other traditions you would need to take Ceremonial Magic proficiency to learn another tradition.
I think at that point, though, you could perform the tradition with the implements of either tradition - like a martial artist who knows multiple styles and begins to blend them into his own unique fighting art.
When ceremonialists "increase their repertoire" at an athanaeum, cult temple or what have you, does that mean their repertoire can increase beyond normal levels? Or does it rather mean that they can add formulae to their codices, which they can then switch into and out of their repertoires, like a mage?
ETA Oh, while I'm at it: What is the deal with ceremonialists and ritual spells? Do they use the same rules as spellcasters for those? Or do ritual spells turn into "ritual ceremonies" or something like that?
Hasty or methodical costs increase and decrease (respectivly) the value of those costs required to complete a ceremony. However it isn't explained why that is the case, especially given it is more or less risky based on how you preform the ceremony itself (implying the altered risk of failure is the increased or decreased 'cost' for the speed of the ceremony). Is there something I have missed there?
It feels as if the idea is that there is some ambient accumulation of power for the time spent doing the ceremony (regardless of location) vs the cost of stored power amounts (a time to cost ratio), thus needing more cost to do things faster.
With blood sacrifices, could a lawful/neutral ceremonialist actually gain power from sapient beings for willing sacrifices, without gaining corruption or needing to use a chaotic location. While not really an act one could consider 'good', ACKs law-chaos doesnt really play into the good vs evil spectrum as wholesale as other D&D-esk systems. There are civilasitions that did such things in the past for the good of the community (thus lawful in design). Unwilling sacrifices would be food for corruption.
Self mutaliation seems to imply there is some kind of benefit to willingly provide a sacrifice without direct corruption.
RULES UPDATES - will appear in the next playtest draft.
Mortal Wounds Section
Heroic Survival: In heroic fantasy campaigns, heroes are considerably more likely to survive mortal wounds than ordinary men. Adventurers with d6 HD add +2 to their 1d20 roll on the Mortal Wounds table. Adventurers with d8 HD add +4, adventurers with d10 HD add +6, and adventurers with d12 HD add +8.
Equipment Section
Special Components, Miscellaneous: When living thing dies, a residue of its soul will linger in some its component parts, such as organs and cellular fluids. These parts are known as special components and can be tapped by ceremonialists to power their ceremonies. While the best results are gained from rare components that are unique to each ceremony, an equal value of miscellaneous special components such as spider webs, plant roots, crushed bones, and so on can be used instead if desired. The ceremonialist suffers a -1 penalty per level of the ceremony on his Ceremony Throw when using miscellaneous special components. See Chapter 5, Costs of Ceremonies, on p. XX for more details.
Spending Fate Points section:
- A character may spend a Fate Point to temporarily gain one rank in any proficiency available to his class or to temporarily gain a thief ability (excluding backstab) at one-half his class level. The effect lasts 1 turn (10 minutes).
Special Components section
Substitute Special Components: Finding the right special components for a ceremony can be a challenging and time-consuming endeavor. Eldritch power is, however, fungible on a metaphysical level. This fungibility allows a ceremonialist to substitute alternative special components of the same total gp value for the unique special components required for any given ceremony. Since it is more challenging to tap the energies for the ceremony in this case, the ceremonialist suffers a -1 penalty per level of the ceremony on his Ceremony Throw when using substitute special components. Merchants such as curios dealers, herbalists, and antiquarians will sell nonspecific special components (such as spider webs, plant roots, crushed ivory, and so on) for 1gp each, in various markets, subject to the usual limits of equipment availability and commission.
Congregants section
In order to tap divine power during a ceremony, a ceremonialist must perform the ceremony in a temple or other place of worship. In lieu of a temple, a pinnacle of good can be substituted for white magic, a sinkhole of evil for black magic, and an elemental area for elemental magic of its type. If a temple is not available, the ceremonialist can create a temporary one by having his congregants participate in the performance of the ceremony. Congregants count as participants if they are within 30’ of the ceremonialist and take no other action throughout the ceremony. The number of congregants required is equal to (ceremony level -1)2. If at any point the ceremonialist is driven out of the temple, or if the required number of congregants are lost, then the ceremony cost cannot be paid by divine power from the congregants. Otherwise, the divine power is consumed when the ceremony cost is paid.
Anyone else struggling with reconciling mishaps with some of the types of "magic" that they are trying to model with the ceremonial magic system? I'd love to hear others' thoughts about the impact on balance if some of the extreme results on the mishaps table were removed.
[quote="Hardrada"]
Anyone else struggling with reconciling mishaps with some of the types of "magic" that they are trying to model with the ceremonial magic system? I'd love to hear others' thoughts about the impact on balance if some of the extreme results on the mishaps table were removed.
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Can you give some examples of the problem areas you've spotted?
"Problem" isn't how I'd describe it. It's more of an issue that I like the flavor of requiring a ceremony to model esoteric buddhist "miracles" -- acknowledging that this is a perilous path for a variety of reasons -- but the mishaps don't fit the flavor the same way as for an eldritch Howardian caster.
Big picture, I can probably just modify the mishaps a bit and achieve what I'm looking to do: Adventurer, Daimyo, Shogun.
[quote="Hardrada"]
"Problem" isn't how I'd describe it. It's more of an issue that I like the flavor of requiring a ceremony to model esoteric buddhist "miracles" -- acknowledging that this is a perilous path for a variety of reasons -- but the mishaps don't fit the flavor the same way as for an eldritch Howardian caster.
Big picture, I can probably just modify the mishaps a bit and achieve what I'm looking to do: Adventurer, Daimyo, Shogun.
[/quote]
I was literally just talking to my local gamer group about how I thought Heroic Fantasy could be used to run "Ashigaru, Daimyo, Shogun"! I'm so excited to hear you've came to the conclusion.
Japan's a nice enclosed area that can provide a full campaign experience, about ~300 24 mile hexes or abouts. I've been wanting to do a campaign treatment with my hex maps, campaign character classes from the boardgame Tokaido, and some of the concepts from Microprose's Sword of the Samurai for quite a while now. And a good watercolor artist.
What I'd kinda like to do sometime is decompose the mishaps into their PC-spell-building-cost in order to get some generic baselines of what the power of the mishaps are; then recompose them into more generic forms I can riff off of during play - my main issue with the concept is much like Hardrada's, in that I'd like the mishap to reflect somehow the circumstances and spell involved. I have the same general opinion of the PC's magical research mishaps as well.
Limitations of the must-be-finished-to-be-published product :) In a perfect world, every spell would have an anti-effect as a mishap condition, perhaps.