Magic design woes

[Nomadic]

Loving the idea of the cold spring drinker letters

[Lmns Crn]

The Cold Spring Drinkers and their curious correspondences date back a while. Most of that thread is about the various Cardan gods, but the Cold Spring Drinkers (and sorcery) have their roots in that Olde Tyme Religion.

On a newer note, here's something interesting.

Meditations on Balance
"The self you recognize is not your true Self. The name you understand is not your true Name."

By practicing the teachings of the dragon Ira, you have begun to deny the false boundaries between the mind and the body and to unlock your full potential. Taking this stunt indicates that you are a mage whose discipline is Irasi. It is a prerequisite for all other Irasi stunts, and you must accompany it with an aspect that indicates your mage status.

This stunt grants you a small suite of powers; further Irasi stunts continue to develop and expand your mastery of magic. Your basic, fundamental abilities as an Irasi Sage are as follows:

* Unity of Mind and Body -- Instead of having two separate stress tracks for physical stress (health) and social/mental stress (composure), you have only a single stress track, which records stress of all kinds. Its length is determined by either your Endurance or your Resolve, whichever is better. Any other stunts which affect your health or composure stress tracks now apply their benefits to this unified stress track.

* Rapid Recovery -- You recover from all consequences two time intervals faster than normal. (Your consequences still last, at minimum, until the end of the scene; they don't vanish mid-scene.)

* The Enemy of Discord -- Your actions dealing with Irasi stunts or the Mysteries skill can always be hindered by aspects and consequences dealing with doubt, disharmony, fear, confusion, hesitation, and weakened resolve, no matter the circumstances. In addition, the Narrator can compel any of these aspects or consequences, causing you to lose your focus (see "The Sage's Focus", below) if you accept the compel.

* The Sage's Focus -- Similar to the way you inhale and exhale, you can gather, hold, and release a potent spiritual focus. Gathering your focus is a full action which requires a successful Mysteries roll against a target of Mediocre (+0), with increased difficulties in situations of stress or distraction. Once you have this focus, you may sustain it for as long as you like; while you remain focused, your Mysteries skill complements your Athletics, Resolve, and Might, but any stress you suffer is increased by one. You release (or involuntarily lose) your focus in any of the following circumstances:
--- voluntarily, as a free action (taken only on your turn, if during a conflict)
--- whenever you speak
--- whenever you make any physical attack or aggressive maneuver (though your Mysteries skill complements the skill you use for the attack)
--- when you suffer any consequence (in this case, you may immediately roll Mysteries as a free action to avoid losing your focus; use the same difficulty as if you were gathering your focus in the first place: Mediocre (+0), but increased in the situations of stress or distraction)
--- when you accept certain compels aspect or consequence compels (see "The Enemy of Discord", above)
--- when you release your focus to activate another Irasi stunt

Many other Irasi stunts provide additional powers that last while you maintain your focus, or that can be activated by releasing your focus.

uber alles[/i], I guess), but as "The Enemy of Discord" is a special hindrance rather than a power, it can stay for now.

(I really don't know whether it is necessary at all; it's easy to argue that it doesn't actually add any new drawbacks or benefits, but it's just a reminder of things that'd be true anyway, just because of the way the basic game mechanics work. "Hey, in case it hadn't occurred to you already, these guys rely on intense concentration-- maybe things that interfere with concentration are problematic for them? Just sayin'.")

The big deal here is The Sage's Focus, which is going to be the "it" thing for Irasi-- the tradition defining quirk, as well as the solution to some of my previous misgivings. It's going to take some more fine-tuning, but I think the premise is sound.

Further Irasi stunts are going to build on this, either by being active only while you've got your focus, or by requiring you to release your focus to activate. (Note to Cataclysmic Crow: that's a convenient "activation cost" other than a fate point, also.)

Anything that hooks into this framework essentially takes a full turn to set up, and since getting your focus requires you to spend a turn doing nothing else (and possibly failing the attempt anyway), any power beefy enough to require you to spend your focus has a powerful limit on it.

As it stands (i.e., if you only have that stunt), releasing your focus to land a physical attack is worth it only if you had the focus already. If you check the numbers, regaining your focus after every attack and spending it on the next one is a terrible way to try combat-- and would remain so, even if I changed the bonus from a Mysteries complement to a straight-up +2.

[Superfluous Crow]

hmm, yeah, a complement is only +1 right? But it's pretty clever, exactly because it's a cost without draining your ability to use ordinary aspects. Can't wait to see what else you can use the focus on :)

[Lmns Crn]

Sages are done for the time being. There will almost certainly be alterations later-- for a start, I'm concerned that there are probably too many stunts here, used to describe a given amount of actual power, and that some should perhaps be combined-- but for now, I am willing to leave it alone.

hmm, yeah, a complement is only +1 right?

Yes, and you'd only get the +1 if the complementing skill is greater than the skill being complemented. (I have changed it from a complement to a regular +1, for the Irasi dabblers and rare warlike Sages whose Weapons or Fists are not less than their Mysteries.)

[Superfluous Crow]

I like how with Harmonious Step you have to choose between keeping your focus but taking the consequences of a lesser fall, or try to save yourself and then take the full brunt if you fail.
If you use fate points to delay fire with the Spirit of Fire stunt, and then regain your focus before you suffer the effects, can you then negate all the delayed consequences as a focussed Spirit of Fire sage is immune to fire?
Can you use Long-armed Strike to disarm?
It seems you have achieved your goal of not having the sages outdo non-magical opponents at every skill. If you can get close to them, their martial art skill is probably not much better than any ordinary practitioner. Their skill lies in moving around past all possible barriers, be they flame, wall, or steel, and to effect melee manuevers at a distance. And controlling fire, but that seems to be mostly for show :)
For combat, Strength of the Sage seems somewhat weak in power, while the Sage as War sounds like it could give them an useful upper hand.

On another note, how many mystical stunts would it be natural for a mysticist to have in his chosen discipline?

[Lmns Crn]

I like how with Harmonious Step you have to choose between keeping your focus but taking the consequences of a lesser fall, or try to save yourself and then take the full brunt if you fail.

Yeah, if you also have "Unlocking the Power Within", you can pretty much leap all over the place like Spiderman.

[Superfluous Crow]

I really like many of your "quotes" by the way.
And check whether you replied to my entire post, or to some unfinished edition of it :)

[Lmns Crn]

It seems you have achieved your goal of not having the sages outdo non-magical opponents at every skill. If you can get close to them, their martial art skill is probably not much better than any ordinary practitioner. Their skill lies in moving around past all possible barriers, be they flame, wall, or steel, and to effect melee manuevers at a distance.

And controlling fire, but that seems to be mostly for show[/quote]or combat, Strength of the Sage seems somewhat weak in power,[/quote]while the Sage as War sounds like it could give them an useful upper hand.[/quote]spend[/i] your focus (currently it doesn't require this, but I may change my mind I guess).

That is definitely an idea I want to keep in mind, though, for when I go back and flesh out some Weapons and Fists stunts. I know I've got a little bit of a general combat overhaul in my future, and I really think that "use spin to place a temporary aspect on your attacker" is likely to show up as some Weapons or Fists stunt eventually-- it's too neat not to.

On another note, how many mystical stunts would it be natural for a mysticist to have in his chosen discipline?

I really like many of your "quotes" by the way.[/quote]By far.[/i]

Some of them I like pretty well, myself, though. :yumm:

[Superfluous Crow]

I'm thinking that since Spirit of Fire builds on mysticism and not endurance, delaying fire damage does not represent pain tolerance but rather supernatural control of fire and your own body. Thus, the fire will not harm you as long as you delay it, and if you manage to find your focus you can extinguish your flesh and emerge unharmed.
This seems to be the most sensible, if not balanced, solution. Having to pay fate points just to have time to regain your focus should be a heavy enough price for it to be balanced though.    

[Lmns Crn]

Yeah; it would a lot more powerful in that respect than Last Leg, but it's also a lot more limited in scope (Last Leg works on fire-related injuries, as well as everything else). It's probably not the least bit unreasonable to have it work exactly as you describe!