[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by PhilD:
* spending a gem to "power" the spell will let you cast it as if you were 1 level higher - both for reaching the required level, and to take less fatigue. I think it's limited to 1 gem for each spell.

One gem per skill level actually. An astral 8 mage can cast master enslave with no communicants by spending enough extra astral pearls.

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Only the first gem (above the required gem cost if any) increases power of the spell. The others only reduce fatigue.

As an example, suppose an Anathemant Dragon (Fire-3) wishes to cast Heat from Hell (Ench 6 Fire 4, fatigue 200-, magic gems required 2). He must spend at least 3 gems to cast it at all (two for the required gem cost, and one more because he is not normally powerful enough to cast it). If he spends only 3 gems, he pays the full 200 fatigue plus his encumbrance, passing out and probably taking damage.

If he spends 4 gems, the spell takes effect at only 4 levels of power, but he now pays only 100 encumbrance because his level *for fatigue purposes only* is 5. Spending 5 gems will reduce his fatigue to 67. He cannot spend 6 gems - the maximum is 2 (required gem cost) + 3 (the Anathemant's power in fire).

Now suppose Asmodeus the Moloch, with Fire 8, wants to cast the same spell. He must spend a minimum of 2 gems, which will give him a fatigue of 40 (200 / 1 + 4 extra levels). One extra gem (three total) would raise the spell's effective power to level 9 and reduce his fatigue to 33 (200 / 1+5), two extra gems would still be power level 9 but fatigue would decrease to 28, etc. He could spend up to 8 extra gems (for a total of 10), which would raise his power level to 9 but his fatigue reduction level to 16, making his fatigue 200/(1+12) or about 15 (plus encumbrance).

If an Astral 9 Monolith casts Master Enslave (Astral 8, 800- fatigue, 8 gems required), spending the maximum possible total gems of 17, it would cast the spell at effective power level 10 (fatigue reduction level 18) and pay a fatigue cost of 800/(1+10)=73. Of course, after you cast Master Enslave it's not very likely that you will need to do much else.