Communion Fatigue question--- strange obeservation

[Baalz]

Well, I’m no guru, and can’t answer the questions you’ve posed, but I can give a little insight into using a communion effectively.

1) Communion slaves get all paths boosted for communion spells, even paths they don’t have at all (though it doesn’t show on their character sheet). Even the “phantam” paths can be boosted by other means, so for instance any communicant will benefit from light of the northern star, phoenix power, etc. for the purposes of fatigue if any master casts it. Buff your slaves! Summon earth power is particularly good for obvious reasons.
2) Counter intuitively, placing your more powerful mages as slaves is often the best way to go. If your communion slaves start out at level 2 or 3 in whatever path is being cast, get a 2 or 3 level boost from the communion, get a further boost from phoenix power/power of the spheres/etc, they’ll end up taking very little fatigue from the stuff unscripted mages usually cast (falling fires, raise dead, etc). There is no encumbrance hit for the slaves so it’s not uncommon to see them taking 2-3 fatigue per casting which (assuming you’re raining down serious destruction) generally means they won’t get sucked dry. Also, it’s often the case that your more powerful mages have paths not available to your weaker ones, but not vice versa. Having the masters (for example) spamming raise dead when the slaves have no death magic is a tragic experience…
3) Manage to acquire a level one blood mage and do a tiny bit of blood research. Give him 2 blood slaves, script Sabbath master, hold, hold, hold, reinvigoration. He’ll go unconscious from the Sabbath master, sleep for a couple rounds (depending on magic scale and his encumbrance), wake up, wait three rounds then reinvigorate every one of the slaves about when they’re fatigue is starting to get dangerously high.
4) This one is kinda self evident, but apparently a lot of people don’t act upon it – communions need critical mass. Not only is a larger communion more powerful, it’s also safer. A three mage communion (2 slaves, 1 master) is almost certain to kill the slaves after a couple battles. A 6 mage one (4 slaves, 2 masters) you have to be careful with, and if you’re unlucky you’ll lose your slaves killing PD sometimes. A 16 mage communion (8 slaves, 8 masters) – if you set it up right you’re very unlikely to lose slaves due to the communion. This is because not only are they much better at distributing fatigue and boosting levels, but they also throw down so much damage that battles don’t drag on long enough for the fatigue to pile up.