Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

What are the rules with using gems to increase magic levels and fatigue?

I know the basic rule is you can use up to N gems (where N is your level) to increase your level by 1 or reduce fatigue.

I scripted the spell Returning (Astral 2) as the first and only spell for an Astral 1 mage with 4 astral gems, and the AI would not cast it.

The spell costs 200 fatigue so I thought it would use 2 gems to cast it, plus 1 to reach Astral 2. Does the 2 gems use to cast the spell affect N or is there some other reason why it would not cast Returning?

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

I believe you can use up to N=Level gems to cast a spell.
The purpose of the gems is irrelevant.

Your S1 mage could however use a gem to cast Power of the Spheres, then use 2 gems (Since now N=2) to cast Returning.

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

You can use only 1 gem, NO MORE, to increase level.

You can only use gems = to your magic level, ie...a level 2 mage could use 1 gem to go to level 3 then another gem to reduce the fatigue. Basically any gems used beyond the first just reduce fatigue. You can NEVER raise your mage level by more than 1 through the use of gems, ie a lvl 4 mage could only go to lvl 5, he could however use a further 3 gems to reduce fatigue.

I presume the computer would not cast it because 200 fatigue equals death of mage...

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

I thought you start losing hp after 200 fatigue? But the mage had 30hp so it would not have died. I guess the AI just tries to minimize the hp loss/unconsciousness?

Otherwise if thejeff is correct then the only way I could cast Returning is to lift my mage's astral level to 2. If Returning costs 2 gems to cast, can I use another 2 gems to increase my level by 1 and reduce fatigue? If I can not then I would still have the same problem with the AI not casting due to fear of death. This does not sound right..

I think what happens is that your astral level 2 mage will only cast Returning if it has at least 3 gems so it could reduce fatigue to 100. When the mage is astral level 1 it can only increase the level to 2 and not reduce fatigue and thus will not cast it.

Oh well time for experimentation.

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

No single spell will ever put you over 200 fatigue. You can cast a spell with a fatigue cost of 700, with no gems beyond those intrinsic to the spell, and you'll still be alive and at 200 fatigue.

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

Are you absolutely sure about it? I thought mage would refuse to cast 700 fatique spell, unless you would give him extra gems(above spell cost) to reduce fatique, or he is much higher than spell's level, or you make him cast it in the communion, et cetera.

I am not sure about it though, haven't tried it for a while.

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

The maximum number of gems used 'N' includes the gem to raise level, gems to reduce fatigue *and* gems needed to cast the spell. An astral 1 mage can never cast a level 2 spell that also requires gems to cast.

An astral 2 mage that casts returning can not use any more gems to increase level or reduce fatigue, because he's already used the 2 needed to cast the spell and he cannot use more gems than his level.

I thought that in dom2 at least higher than 200 fatigue resulted in damage and could kill mages - a common cause of death for communicants. I though that the high-fatigue battlefield spells essentially required a very high-level mage or lots of gems to reduce the total fatigue below 200. Of course, I could be wrong here.
I'm pretty sure that the spell AI will refuse to cast spells if they'll take fatigue too high.

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

Going above 200 fatigue is indeed quickly fatal, _but_ casting a single spell will never take a mage above 200 fatigue (I only realised this recently). Communion slaves though can easily be killed by excessive fatigue since the masters won't stop casting just because the slaves are asleep, and Grip Of Winter/Heat From Hell/Rigor Mortis can all also easily kill people from fatigue (particularly if they've already worn themselves out casting spells).

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

I suspect that it's a max of 200 per spell. I know that if you have 0 fatigue before casting a 300 fatigue spell you'll be at 200 and unhurt. But if you are at 50 fatigue before, I think that you can only cast spells that cost 150 or less after modifications. Not 100% sure on this though.

Re: Gems, fatigue and increasing magic levels
 

That's interesting, that makes sense actually, the way I worded it is a bit dodgy.

Still, it says in the manual that a mage will never voluntarily go over 200 fatigue. So if the fatigue for casting a hard spell is always treated as 200, that means that a mage with 0 fatigue can cast it, but one with 1 fatigue can't, which seems a bit bizarre.