Massive fatigue spells

[Folket]

You can use as many gems as you have path. S1 mage can use 1 astral gem, S2 2 astral gems, F3 3 fire gems and so on.

[thejeff]

A mage can't use more gems than he has levels in that path.
So an S8 mage can only use the 8 gems to cast Master Enslave and none to reduce fatigue.
A S7 mage can't cast it at all.

IIRC, a mage can only use 1 gem to boost his path to actually be able to cast the spell, but can use more to reduce fatigue.
Eg., Assume a S8, 4 gem required spell. An S7 mage could use 4 gems for the cost, another to reach S8, and 2 more to reduce fatigue, reducing fatigue to 133.

I suspect the AI will happily use gems to reduce the fatigue from high cost spells, even if it remains above 200.
Eg., Assume a S8, 5 gem required spell. An S7 mage could use 5 gems for the cost, another to reach S8, and 1 more to reduce fatigue, reducing fatigue to 250, which would be capped at 200.

(Edited to fix examples. Thanks Folket)

[Folket]

You examples are flawed. S7 mages can't use eight gems.

They can use one gem to raise path. Then six other gems to cast spell or reduce fatigue.

[Sir_Dr_D]

This is good informaiton. I always thought yo needed a large comminion to cast master enslave. This will make things easier.

[edit: I wrote the following, but it seems that 2 other people wrote it at almost the same time that i did.]

A mage can only use a number of gems equal to their skill in the path of magic. A level one mage can only use one gem,while a level eight can use a total of 8 gems in a spell. Therefore if you a level 8 astral mage you cannot use any extra gems to reduce fatiigue when you cast master enslave because the spell takes eight gems itself, and you cannot use any more then that. But if you can are level 10 you can use 8 to cast the spell, 1 to raise your level, and 1 to reduce fatigue.

[Chris_Byler]

I thought the "can't use more gems than your path level" restriction didn't include gems that are part of the cost of the spell and only applied to gems used to raise power/reduce fatigue. This would allow the S7 caster to use the 8 required gems, plus up to 7 more gems for increased power/reduced fatigue (of which there must be at least one "extra" gem, or he wouldn't be powerful enough to cast it at all).

Unfortunately the manual section on "Using magic gems in combat" (p.89) does not address this issue; spells with an inherent gem cost aren't mentioned at all.

Maybe someone could test this: give an S1 and S2 mage 10 pearls each, script them both to cast immediate Returning, see what happens.

[llamabeast]

I'm pretty sure the "can't use more gems than your path level" restriction does include gems that are part of the casting cost. Hence a level 3 mage couldn't cast a level 4 spell with 400 fatigue cost, since he'd need to use 5 gems total.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I'm certain the gem use restriction does include gems that are part of the casting cost.

While attempting to punish R'lyeh, I scripted two Oracles of the Ancients to cast Earthquake, Earthquake as their first two actions. I outfitted them with Earthboots so they had the four path minimum for the spell. I also equipped them each with 15 earth gems. They fell unconscious after the first cast, after using three or four gems. I really regret not scripting earthpower as well.

If the gems in casting cost did not count, I would have quaked R'lyeh to death.
If I'd cast Earthpower, I would have had at least a 5 in the path. I'm not sure how the math falls out after that point (whether one gem would be used to boost my level by one, cutting the cost by 150, or whether that gem would be used to reduce fatigue by 100, or both), but I'm pretty certain I could have covered the entire fatigue.

[thejeff]

As I understand gem use, 1 gem can boost your level to cast the spell, others continue to boost your level but only for the purposes of reducing fatigue.
So, Earthquake is 3 gems?, E4. 300 fatigue.
So at 4th level they used 4 gems, 3 to cast, 1 to boost level, taking 150 fatigue.
With Earthpower, they'd be at fifth level to start with, thus could use 5 gems, boosting them to 7th (for fatigue only) taking 300/4 75 fatigue, allowing them to cast again.


That's without considering encumbrance or magic/drain scales. I've never really figured out how those figure in.

(Hopefully I didn't make any more stupid mistakes in that)

[Meglobob]

llamabeast said:
I'm pretty sure the "can't use more gems than your path level" restriction does include gems that are part of the casting cost. Hence a level 3 mage couldn't cast a level 4 spell with 400 fatigue cost, since he'd need to use 5 gems total.

This is wrong I believe. An example:-

I have a lvl 4 Air mage who wants to cast Fog Warriors lvl 5 air.

I give that mage 4 air gems, casts it no problem. Fatigue is capped at 200. Even thou fatigue for spell is 300.

3 air gems casting cost for Fog Warriors, 1 air gem to raise his lvl to 4.

The reason for the higher fatigue than 200 is to stop you spamming the more powerful spells. Any mage casting a spell using more than 200 fatigue will cast it and be capped at 200 fatigue.

[thejeff]

Right, 3 gems for the spell and 1 to raise his level. 4 total, which is his level.

If it had been a 400 fatigue/4 gem spell, he couldn't have cast it.

One reason for the higher fatigue is that fatigue is gem cost. Not only will you fall unconscious and stop casting, you'll burn through gems.