Astral Spells/Levels/Boosters

[JonBrave]

Sigh... here goes: sorry if the information is already published across a number of threads, but I'm hoping for a summary....

Since I'm Arco/Astral in my current, I would like to know. Which spells do/don'y my boosters count for?

I (think I) know that, for example, if I "Magic Duel" any boosters (items, cast-spells-raising-levels, ...) I have are ignored, it's just my base Astral and his that competes. Does this apply to all Astral spells? Mind Burn/Paralyze/Soul Slay etc.? Is it that anything which says "Magic Resistance Negates" means no boosters [I don't think so]??

I assume (taken for granted) that any booster levels do help with any fatigue-caused/level-required in order to actually cast these spells.

And where does (or doesn't) my "Spell Focus" amulet come into any of these?

Thanks!

[Kobal2]

Magic Duel is unique in that it's based on straight up astral skill. No boosters, no gems, no PotS/LotNS, no communion, no nothing.

Other S spells are just like those any other school: if the spell description has + or - next to a figure, it means higher level in Astral means better scores or lower fatigue, and in that case boosters and buffs do count.

Increased skill in the path required to cast the spell does make them harder to resist, specifically you get one point of penetration for every 2 points of S magic above requirements. Not sure if it's rounded up or down. Assume down. And boosters do count here, as do communions etc...
The full formula is: 12+DRN+skill/2 - MR+DRN+skill/2 ; caster wins ties.
In other news, today I learned that having skill in one path made you resist spells of that path more easily. Intuitive perhaps, but I didn't know that.

Spell Focus gives Penetration 1, which means that you get to substract one point of the victim's MR before they roll to resist.

[JonBrave]

Thanks. Ok so you're saying, Magic Duel is the only one that works that unboosted way, simple. I so thought I had read threads discussing other Astrals working that way...

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Thanks. Ok so you're saying, Magic Duel is the only one that works that unboosted way, simple. I so thought I had read threads discussing other Astrals working that way...

It's possible Strands of Arcane Power also works that way, both on the "magic duel astral mages in dominion" aspect, and the sitesearching one. Then again, that spell is so rarely ever cast, I'm not sure there much definitive data about it.

[Amhazair]

Better look at this in another way. In fact, S level and boosters and whatnot affect ALL spells equally, including Magic Duel, which is affected the same way as any other spell by S level when casting it. (Which would mean fatigue reduction mostly.)

The effect of the spell, once succesfully cast, would then be to start a magic duel, in which the two unboosted minds take a metaphysical tilt at each other.

I'm not sure if my explanation makes sense to anyone else, but to me it's allways seemed quite logical once I started thinking about it this way.