Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

I have a s10 oracle. With a amu of luck, a eye of the void, spell focus, and a ring of sorcery.

I script him to cast master enslace, returning, spells. Give him 13 s gems. And teleport him to a group of indies.

This is what happens. Turn one master enslave. Uses 11 gems. Turn two sometimes returning, sometimes normal enslave spells. (I think related to the nr of enemy commanders that are not enslaved).

But how can the spell use up 11 gems? It looks like the spell uses up more than one gem for fatigue reduction.

I also tested it with a s10 oracle (example above sans ring of sorc). It uses 10 gems then. And ends up with 112 fat. s11 79 fatigue.

(Damn while typing this somebody said this at irc:
[Raiel] It's "only one gem for increasing your level", you can use up to x gems, where x = your magic level per cast.
[Raiel] By per cast, I mean "on a single casting of the spell".
[Soyweiser] I thought, only one gem to increase your level, and this additional level also reduces the fatigue you get.
[Raiel] Yup, but you can use additional gems for fatigue reduction.
[Raiel] (It reduces fatigue if you already had enough levels in the path to cast the spell.)
)

So this is more a fyi post.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

As you describe it, there's nothing mysterious unless I misunderstand you.

An S10 Oracle with a RoS equipped is an S11 caster and can thus use 11 gems. This is what happens in your first example.

Strip it of the RoS and it is an S10 caster and can use 10 gems. This is what happens in your second example.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

This is the kind of info that belongs in the wiki :)

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

I always thought that you could only use one gem for fatigue reduction. And that a x lvl caster could only use x gems. (So, a n3 caster can use 1 gem to reach n4 (which should also help with fatigue) and then cast a n4 spell that uses 3 gems).

I assumed that the level boost was linked to the fatigue boost.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Nope, you can only use one gem to materially boost your magic paths. You can gobble as many gems as you darn well please to soak fatigue. Different concepts, even though in practice they have the exact same effect I believe (well, except that the one upgrade gems actually opens up new spells, instead of just making the Universe believe you're one level higher for fatigue purposes)

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Aha, this is news to me too!

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

I'm not sure if some patch somewhere along the line changed the fatigue-reducing gem consumption mechanism? I seem to recall being certain that the stuff worked the way Soyweiser describes in his second post, and then at some point starting to be consistently surprised by casters using up more gems than they should according to my previous experiences. Long time ago though, so I'm absolutely not certain anymore.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Well, my memory says that the "you can use up to pathlevel gems to cast a spell of which one can be used to boost pathlevel and the rest to cover spellcost and fatigue reduction" mechanic has been in the game since Dominions 2, but it is such a long time since I played Dom2 that I may remember wrong. I'm pretty sure it has been that way since launch of Dom3, at the very least.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

No, nothing has changed and it's always been this way. Check page 89 of the (pdf) manual. There's even an example with a mage using one gem to raise paths, and a second one to reduce fatigue.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

You are reading it wrong :) As has been pointed out in this thread already a few times, a mage can use at most as many gems as he has levels in the path, and one of those gems can be used to increase his level. This is the way it has always been :)

The example you point to tells this very clearly. The mage is an Astral 2 mage who wants to cast an Astral 3 spell. As he is Astral 2, he can use 2 gems. He uses one to raise his level to 3, and then the other to reduce the fatigue. It is explicitly stated he can not use three or more gems because his original skill (ie without the gem "boost") is 2.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

This is the kind of info that is explicitly stated in the rulebook, and is also correctly stated in the rulebook ;) Read rulebook page 89 "A mage can only use as many gems as his current skill level in that path".

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

My experience is that AI will usually go ahead and use the maximum number of allowed gems, at least for the big-fatigue spells.

One thing I am more confident in (from running a bunch of tests in which I was teleporting an S9 Oracle + several Grand Thaumaturgs to cast Master Enslave) is that the AI is predictable - it will always use the same number of gems for the same spell given the current caster level. So running a test should let you know how many extra gems you need to carry in order to get a second spell (Returning, or Vortex of Returning) to cast.

As to why your tests varied in whether or not the Oracle cast Returning - I recently learned the very hard way that Returning is not automatic. The AI sizes up the opposition (a good question is "based on what?" I *think* it is based on the ratio of your total HP to the opposition's total HP). I would guess that the times when you Oracle did not cast Returning were cases where the Master Enslave was more successful, tipping the total HP balance more in your favor.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Well, yes, that's... what I'm saying and been saying all along ? :confused: Are we in violent agreement, here ?

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Nope, you said:
You can *not* gobble as many gems as you please to soak fatigue. You can only use at most as many gems as what your level is the path.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

I hope you don't mind a newb poking in here, but IMHO this exact question is answered in precise detail in a recent thread: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=47094.

It deals with the wording in the manual too :)

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Ah yes, I wanted to post an addendum to that, but I either forgot or thought that part was well understood by everyone. Either way, yes, no more gem huffing than your pre-buffed path in that particular magic element.

ETA: that's pre-buffed by gems. Buffing via empowerment or magic items does allow you to eat more delicious rock-candy.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Just to be precise, empowerment, magic items, or booster spells all allow you to use more gems.

I'm not sure about communions. They should, but I don't think I've ever confirmed it.
It would be nice if the AI was smart enough not to burn extra gems to reduce fatigue, when all the fatigue is going to the slaves, whom the extra gems don't help anyway. But it's not.

Re: Gem use, master enslave, high astral and oracle.
 

Communion spells let you use more gems if they raise your actual caster level (ie, masters) - not just your effective level for fatigue soaking (ie, slaves).

This is pretty obvious if you consider the astral communion whose raison d'etre is to cast master enslave with a less than S8 (base) caster.