Ritual Limit question

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Baron
Ok, I know that targets have a 20 Ritual maximum. Do multiple extension rituals count towards that?

For instance, say I make an item with 14 rituals and then cast a Boost Duration on it, bringing the total up to 15. In 3 weeks, at a game day, I cast Extend Duration. Does that place the ritual count to 16? What happens when the original Boost Duration expiration date passes? Does the ritual count fall back to 15, or stay at 16?

Thanks in advance for the clarification.
 
It's at any given time. Say you make an item with three rits and Permanence it. That's four. Now, six months later, you add two more and Extend it. That's seven. A year from then, when the Extend expires, it'll go back to four.
Now, what I don't know is the rule for overriding Extension-type rituals. I had heard that if you Extend an item, then Preserve it six months later, the Preserve overwrites the Extend and the rituals that had been extended are now Preserved. Not 100% if that's true, and don't know what would happen if you cast 19 rituals, Extend them, then cast Preserve on the item a month later, since the item technically has 20 rituals already.
 
Boost<Extend<Preserve<Permanence.

An Extend will overwrite a Boost, a Preserve will overwrite an Extend, and a Permanence will overwrite a Preserve.

The sequence that *isn't* clear is will a new Permanence overwrite an old Permanence. I think the ARC may actually be looking at that one.

Edit: Supposedly you must also cast seperate extensions for seperate "schools" of rituals, but I believe that's also something they're looking at, since it's possible to cast seperate schools of rituals in the same batch and the scrolls define it by batch, not school.
 
So, in the example I gave above, the ritual count would stay 15 and not increase to 16?

And two Permanent Durations count as two rituals?

Example: I cast a batch of 6 rituals and then cast Permanent Duration, bringing the total to 7 rituals. Later, I add 10 more rituals and cast Permanent Duration. Is the ritual total now 17 (old Permanent Duration merges with new Permanent Duration) or 18 (each Permanent Duration ritual counts as 1 ritual)?

What is the definition of a "batch of rituals"?
 
Derek Ironhammer said:
No, a new permenance will not override an old permenance.
Click to expand...

The last thing posted on the alliance forums regarding duration extending rituals is that they're being looked at. Perhaps they will definitively answer that question for us, as it was one brought up in that thread.
 
I have asked for ARC to post a clarification on this to the national boards, as the exact policy is unclear (and not in the addendum).
 
I can definitely confirm that the intent, when we created the current ritual system, is that duration rituals do not overwrite other duration rituals of equal or greater duration.

IE. extend does not overwrite extend, preserve or permanence.

It's possible that someone might change their mind about it and alter the way it functions, but currently the permanence ritual does not overwrite other permanence rituals.
 
I believe ya, Mark, but remember you also intended about quadruple the reagents that is policy. Go figure.
 
True, but component distribution is not contained within the ritual rules, while how permanence functions does.

I understand what you mean and it's possible the ARC may decide to change the way the rules function, but currently that is how they function.
 
Here is another ritual idea/question for discussion:

Has the National Alliance ever thought about making the caster make his own flaws?

I am not talking about "ritual succeeds, caster gains once ever Bane Command" flaws; more along the lines of:

"Ritual Succeeds, Ritual only usable on days beginning with 'S'"

or

"Ritual Succeeds, the phrase 'Behold my power' must be said before activating ritual power"

or

"Ritual Succeeds, ritual becomes inactive for 10 seconds when the phrase 'My life I give' is said by target (if body or spirit) or said by holder of target (if physical)"

or

"Ritual Succeeds, if target is physical then target must be worn for ritual to in effect"
 
Great question!

Actually, there used to be a system in place under the old international rules that allowed for things like that.

Those things have been proposed a few times but never made it into the system. Perhaps with the new campaign that can be proposed again. Although there's a big push to keep things as close to alliance standard as possible for now. Slow change is good. Perhaps you could write up some thoughts on how you think something like that would work and then submit it to Bryan, and hey maybe me too because I'm always interested in seeing new ideas when it comes to Ritual Magic.
 
A submission should contain at least:

- the idea itself, well formatted and readable
- how/why the idea will help the game
- how/why the idea might harm the game
- alternative implementations of the idea if applicable - for example maybe we can't put the new race "cats in balloons" into the game, but maybe we could come up with a change to the Sarr race packet to incorporate a clan of Sarr which prefers balloons to mice.

I'll be happy to look over any rules submission and give C&C, but always keep in mind that very few rules submissions end up being implemented. It's kind of like making weapons - most peoples' first weapon attempt fails, but some of them *do* make it through. If nothing's submitted, it is far less likely that things will change :)

Mayhap I will make a sticky post out of this...

-Bryan
 
A good format to follow would be thus:

  • Proposal
  • Commentary
  • Does this change affect the dynamics of NERO combat? If so, how?
  • Does this change affect play balance?
  • Does this change affect the overall safety of the game?
  • Does this change have an affect on roleplay and/or world continuity?
  • Could this change potentially create a logistically difficult situation?
 
Both of those are good formats, obviously the format you use should be geared toward the people you intend to read it. My best suggestion is to write the actual rules portion of it as though it were in the book. In essence, look at how that section of the rulebook is written and kind of try to figure out where it would go in there and exactly how you would like to see it written such that if someone read your suggestion they could literally copy and past it into the rules and not really notice that it wasn't original content.

This will do two things for you. It'll speed up the submission process because people you are submitting it to won't have to spend much time trying to figure out where to put it our how it will figure in to that section. It also caters to the fact that people in general are always more inclined to say no to something than to say yes because saying no takes less work.

I look forward to seeing what you propose! Good luck and feel free to contact me if you ever want to just bounce some ideas back and forth.

~Mark
 
Another question, this one a bit more mundane.

In the rulebook on page 94, far left column, paragraph 3, sentances 2 and 3, it states, "All ritual casting requires somewhere between three and ten reagents. No ritual will ever require more then ten components."

Why do some rituals require up to 21 reagents, then?

My only guess is that the key word in those two sentances is "require" and the "require" in my sentance should be "can use". Therefore, the base minimum required components will never be more then ten, but you have the option of using more for a more powerful effect.

Is that hypothesis close to correct?
 
Polare Lissenstine said:
I have asked for ARC to post a clarification on this to the national boards, as the exact policy is unclear (and not in the addendum).
Click to expand...

A clarification should be forthcoming in the near future. The idea that an extender could be seen as being "upgradeable" (with the exception of boost, as its text specifically says that not only can it, but it is "Unlike other Extend rituals" in that respect) isn't something we've had to deal with out here.

Ultimately (again, except for Boost), the debate hinges on the word "Batch", not currently defined in the rulebook or addenda, but in the old ritual packet (likely a clerical ommision) as (paraphrase) a group of rits of the same school cast in sucession on the same target. As, according to the text of Extend, Preserve, and Permanence, that ritual must be cast "in the same batch", it would prevent an "upgrade" unless you're batching the duration extenders (for some unfathonable reason).

A clarification of "Batch" should be coming down the pipe soon, and that should hopefully answer these questions.

As for other things mentioned on this thread-
1) multiple duration extenders take up multiple slots on an item (say you want an elemental aura and an earth aura, that means you need both an E and a C extender, so you're at 4 rituals with just the 2 auras and 2 extenders)
2) the "base" cost of a ritual should never be more than 10 reagents (which looking through the DB to answer other parts, I notice Proscribe violates, before someone else jumps all over it)
3) the concept of caster-created flaws has come up several times in the past, both through formal and informal channels, but (to date) have all been either extremly powergamey ("you mean I can specify that only people with my name can use it? I'll never need a spirit lock again!" or extremly unwieldy (adding a dozen pages to the book seems a bit much).

~JP, East Coast
 
EC_JP said:
1) multiple duration extenders take up multiple slots on an item (say you want an elemental aura and an earth aura, that means you need both an E and a C extender, so you're at 4 rituals with just the 2 auras and 2 extenders)

~JP, East Coast
Click to expand...

I'm curious as to why this would be ruled this way, as it's logistically more unwieldy and more of a headache in the long-term than just having one extend do it.

It's also harder on the already meager ritual portion of the treasure policy and a bit of slap to an already under-used skill thus, making said skill even less desirable to players.
 
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