Massive fatigue spells
 

I don't understand spells like Master Enslave that list fatigue of 800 or whatnot. How could you ever cast that spell?

I realize 800 fatigue is a strange way to say that you need 8 gems to cast the spell (right?). But you also take the fatigue hit, don't you? In the case of Master Enslave, the spell is also S8, so even if you had an S10 pretender, you'd still be getting 200 fatigue from this spell. or am I misunderstanding? It just seems very hard to understand how some of these spells could be possible.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Communion items and/or communion slaves while casting these high spells.

Also lots of extra gems beyond the original casting can be used to reduce fatigue.

These spells are extremely powerful... and thus difficult to cast.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

When I use gems to cut fatigue in a battlefield spell cast, do the gems help in any other way besides by raising my path by one and thereby lowering fatigue? the book says you can only raise your path by 1 with gems, so that wouldn't really do the trick i don't think.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

From what I hear, here's how an 800 fatigue spell works with an 8 strong magic path, and no communions involved (ideally, you do want a communion, but not everybody has access to that).

Eight gems are spent. The fatigue cost of the spell remains 800, but due to a cap on the effect of spell casting on fatigue, you take only 200 fatigue points of damage and fall asleep. You don't cast any more spells. Any fatigue damage dealt after that point (by chill auras, for instance) goes straight to damage your health. But at the moment, you go to a round 200 and stop there. Recovering 5 a round as you sleep it off. No spell cast by an individual will kill your mage.

A mage leading a communion, however, can push the fatigue of slaves past 200.

The reason for the high fatigue is two fold.

The exact mechanics of spell fatigue must be explained by someone more familiar with the game than i, but this should approximate the situation.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Fatigue works like this.

Your mages can cast ANY SPELL regardless of it's fatigue cost as long as they are at least within one magic level of the spell. If master enslave is S8, and you have an S7 mage, they can cast it once by using a single EXTRA gem in the process. That extra gem is in addition to any of the gems cost to cast the spell in the first place.

Your battle mages can never use gems during the casting process to elevate themselves more than one level. This is not something you have to give a command for, just provide the extra gems in the caster's inventory and they will use them automatically (hopefully).

Note that when you cast a spell with massive fatigue cost, like master enslave at the listed level for the spell, it takes you directly from whatever fatigue you are at to 200. A unit with 99 fatigue can cast master enslave and not die.

Now, if you want to *spam* a spell like master enslave from a single caster you have to do thing differently. You have two options.

1. Get the caster's level in astral magic so high that it makes the cost in fatigue manageable. You can use boosters like ring of wizardy, starshine skullcap, crystal coin, ring of sorcery. You can also cast spells while in combat such as Power of The Spheres, or Light of the Northern Stars.

When you're using this method, for each level above and beyond the spell's required level you divide the fatigue cost by that much.

So, if you are casting master enslave and it requires S8 to simply cast it at 800 fatigue here is the progression on cost reduction.

S9 = 400 fatigue (divide 800/2)
S10 = 266 fatigue (divide 800/3)
S11 = 200 fatigue (divide 800/4)
S12 = 160 fatigue (divide 800/5)
S13 = 133 fatigue (divide 800/6)
S14 = 114 fatigue (divide 800/7)
etc, etc

Magic scales also play a factor in this, with drain increasing the fatigue cost, and magic bonus scales decreasing it. I don't have those numbers in front of me. They are in the instruction book.

In addition to casting spells to boost one's skill in astral magic, you can also use gems to boost the battle mage's skill by one during the act of casting for the explicit reason of fatigue reduction. I do not know how reliable this is, or how the battle mage AI figures out when to use a gem verus when to not use a gem, but I have used it before. Note that by doing this it is possible to use up to an extra +2 gems for any casting of a spell, 1 to raise the level of the caster to make it possible, and 1 to raise the level again to reduce fatigue.

2. Do some tricks with communion slave + communion master. I have no idea how this works, but there is a really good thread on it.

Jazzepi

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Jazzepi, a S7 can't cast master enslave since they can only use 7 gems per casting, while they would need 9. One to raise path and 8 to cast.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Is there some hard limit on the # of gems a caster can use during a spell? This is the first I've heard about it if there is.

Jazzepi

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

I thought i read somewhere that even when scripted a mage would not cast a spell that would put them above 200 fatigue. Is that not true?

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

A single spell can't put you over 200 fatigue. Go try it out in a practice game.

Jazzepi

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Yep, that's not true Cor. To my mind the manual is quite unclear on this stuff.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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)

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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)

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

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.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Yes, 100% agreed.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

You are on track. Max nbr of gems are mage lvl. This includes casting cost and increase lvl cost.

thejeffs example is correct.

Furthermore:
A mage can only use one gem to empower himself during a casting. This is the only way for him to reduce fatigue. He will not use more gems then one to reduce fatigue, and fatigue is only reduced as a side effect of him being temporarily more powerful.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

So the most gems that can be spent is the lower of mage level and (gem cost of spell + 1)?

I was sure I'd seen cases of spending more, but maybe not...

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Huh... so no reason to carry more than cost+1 gems per spell?

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

The manual is outright incorrect in that case I think.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Hmm, checking in the manual I conclude that it might be misleading, the key phrasing being 'two purposes'. The gem spent actually works towards both purposes. It is not a choice between the two (unless JK has done something I'm not aware of).

A bit later: 'can be used both to..., or ...', should be: 'will be used to ..., and ...'.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

So if you can only use 1 more gems than your level.... where would the max number of gems per mage level come into play?

This thread only succeeded in confusing me.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

You can NOT use more gems than your lvl. Not ever.

You can cast a spell of one lvl higher if you have a gem with you, unless the spell cast demands that you use as many gems as the spell's lvl.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Velusion: This is how I understand it. I have a level 5 mage. He can use up to 5 gems. Spells I want to cast:

Thunderbolt AAA, 75 fatigue (iirc). He will take 25 fatigue+Enc with no gems. Give him 5 gems. He will, most likely, spend 1 gem, making him A6, meaning he takes 12 Fatigue. In this case, he _cannot_ use any more gems. He cannot empower, nor does the spell cost gems.

Now, let's assume there was an A4 spell that cost 2 gems and 200 fatigue. FOr the following gem counts, this is what can happen:

0: Nothing. Not enough gems for spell.
1: Nothing. Not enough gems for spell.
2: Spell cast. Gain 100+Enc Fatigue (200/(5-4+1))
3: Spell Cast with extra gem for empowering. Gain 67+Enc Fatigue.
4: Spell cast, as 3 above, as empowerment limit and spell cost limit have been reached.
5: Spell Cast, as 4 above.

Is this correct, KO?

Wyatt Hebert

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Seems correct.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Um.... so why would he EVER use more than one gem over the casting cost if it has no effect on fatige?

Why is there a max limit of gems per level? Are you saying:

a W3 mage casting a spell that costs 3 gems could not commit an extra gem to help against fatige? In the same vein a W3 mage casting a W2 spell that costs 4 gems would simply not be able to cast it period?

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Yes. You can use Gem Cost + 1 or Your level, whichever is lower.


edited due to thinko.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

I'm not sure that answered my questions... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but I could not be reading it right...

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

> Um.... so why would he EVER use more than one gem over the casting cost if it has no effect on fatige?

He can't, so he WILL NOT ever use more than one gem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

If the spellcasting system allowed him to, it would have effects, but id doesn't.


> Why is there a max limit of gems per level? Are you saying:

> a W3 mage casting a spell that costs 3 gems could not commit an extra gem to help against fatige? In the same vein a W3 mage casting a W2 spell that costs 4 gems would simply not be able to cast it period?

Correct! That is why no W2 spells cost more then 2 gems. That is, unless someone has modded a spell into uselessness http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Ahh ok. It's clear now.

So the only time the max limit of gems per level comes into play is when the gem cost of the spell is exactly equal to the level of the caster in the appropriate path. In that case (and only that case) you could not spend an extra gem to reduce fatige.

Correct?

Edit for the record this is pretty much how I thought it worked... but all the other posters got me confused. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

And just to clarify something else (since KO is posting here). The rules say you take 1 hit point for every additional fatige over 200 (right?). But this does not apply to yourself casting spells? According to some posters here if you cast a spell that gives you huge fatige you'll just hit 200 and pass out taking no damage?

The < 200 = damage only really matters when units are forced to take fatige from other sources... like with communion slaves or Rigor Mortis?

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

It does not apply when you first reach 200 IIRC, but every time after that, including effects such as rigor mortis etc.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Thanks!

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

I learned a great deal reading this thread. Thanks guys.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Did what I could. I'm stumbling through a lot of it myself, but it certainly helps explain lots of things.

Wyatt Hebert

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

There's a bug, then. In a test game last night, I gave an E9 Cyclops orders to cast Earthquake (E4, 300 fatigue) twice and gave him 7 gems just in case he decided to use one gem to reduce fatigue.

He cast it once using 6 (3 + 3 for fatigue) gems and didn't have enough gems for the other. By the way, he ended with 40 fatigue after one casting, and would have had 60-odd if he had done it with only 3 gems, so the bug makes casting much more costly in gems and not much cheaper in fatigue.

-Max

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Yes I noticed the same thing, mages often use more than one additional gem, in addition to base gem cost of spells requiring gems (and this even when they have the level for the spell).

If only one can be used to reduce fatigue and boost level at the same time, there should be a bug somewhere.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they use another time the base gem cost of the spell to reduce fatigue, if they level and number of gems is sufficient, instead of base gem cost + just 1 gem to empower/reduce fatigue.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Hmmm, interesting hypothesis. I'll check this later.

-Max

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Twan,

I just checked, and the hypothesis turns out to be false. Some casters can overuse gems by more than 100%. I had a D6 caster scripted to do Shadow Blast x6, and his number of gems went like this:

Pre-battle: 20
Round 1 complete: 17
Round 2: 14
Round 3: 11
Round 4: 5
Round 5: 0

Some weird things going on with usage there (at the beginning he's almost conservative), but at one point he's blowing 6 gems on a 100 fatigue spell when he's already +4 on levels.

-Max

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Spellcaster AI really needs to be tightened up. Just fixing this gem use issue would go a tremendously long way toward helping us script for major battles.

When we've played a game for two months, and then spend an hour or more scripting for a major battle, only to see your mage blow 5 gems on a Shadow Blast (when KO just said you cannot ever spend more than gem cost +1) and he can no longer cast that BE that is the key to your strategy...

disappointing isn't really the word. More like, time to find another game.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

I'll report in the bug shortlist thread. Done.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

"By using a magic gem, a caster gains one skill level in that magic path. This can be used both to allow a mage to cast a spell for which he would not normally have the skill, or to reduce the fatigue of a spell, or both."

"Example: Bageroth is a Fire-3, Astral-2 mage. He wants to cast Astral Fires in battle. This spell requires Astral-3 and Fire-1. Bageroth could use one Astral gem to increase his Astral skill to 3, which would make him able to cast the spell. He could use two Astral gems, which would not only allow him to cast the spell, but would reduce the spell fatigue by half. He could not use three or more gems because his original skill in Astral magic is two."


The Manual, page 89, "Using magic gems in combat", referred to in the index, page 290, as 'gems, in combat, 89'.

The mechanics work as was intended. It seems Kristoffer was wrong on the part where he was quoted. Perhaps he misremembered; it wouldn't be the first time.
The AI doesn't work as it should. That can be listed as a minor bug. I suggest that you now discuss how many gems AI should be allowed to use in a single spell, without adding in a checkbox for "spend these gems", without adding in a selection tool for how many gems can be used in a battle, without complicating spell selection by you having to choose how many gems are used per spell, and without adding any other mechanics.



As an example:
It would be better if AI only used one gem for reducing fatigue. 400-fatigue spell cast by a mage 2 levels higher than the required level could use 4 gems and be left at 133 fatigue + enc, or 5 gems and be left at 100 fatigue + enc, but not 6 gems and be left at 80 fatigue +enc. At least there wouldn't be any confusion about the matter.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

If using more than one gem was really intended (KO is the the guy who designed the mechanic, when Bruce Geryk in the manual just described how he understood the game was supposed to work, so I'm not sure the manual has to be > to KO view on the subject)

Anyway, a good formula for me would be something like :
(carried number of gems) / X rounded down (X being a fixed number between 5 and 10)

It would allow the player to be sure that mages having less than X gems don't use them just to reduce fatigue, but also to make them use several gems by giving them a lot.

A good value for X would be 9 because 8 gems is the maximum gem cost for a battle spell (so with X=9, giving 8 gems to a mage and using a 0 gem spell in round one, you can be sure he will still have 8 gems to cast even master enslave in round 2 instead of using one to reduce fatigue on first spell).

Then if using a formula is considered too complex, I'd simply say one per spell.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

Max, if you've still got that test you just did around, what were the fatigue levels after each cast? Maybe there's some logic in that. Also does anything show up in the debug log about gem use?

As for a better mechanic, I'd like to see it tied to fatigue. Use a gem if it'll save you a certain amount of fatigue. Maybe 20 points?
So for Shadow Blast:
D2 caster 1+0 gems: 100 fat
D2 caster 1+1 gems: 50 fat
Uses 1 gem, saves 50 fat

D3 caster 1+0 gems 50 fat
D3 caster 1+1 gems 33 fat
D3 caster 1+2 gems 25 fat
Uses no gems. would only save 17 fat.

Max's D6 caster would only use 20 fatigue without gems, using 3 only saves him 8 fatigue. Using 6 saves him another 3. That's silly.

I wonder if the AI is figuring in the extra area and damage? No noticeable fatigue savings, but if it does a lot more damage it might consider it worth it.


I'd also prefer if they wouldn't use gems if, even using gems, fatigue would still end up over 200.

Re: Massive fatigue spells
 

How about a different approach:

When faced with gems and scripted spells the AI should look at what combination of assigning gems to spells results in the lowest final fatigue. That's how the gems should be allocated. Under no conditions should gems be used so as to preclude casting all scripted spells unless it's impossible to cast them all.