The following is a description of concert spellcasting as posted to the Mongoose Publishing forum today.
Concert Casting
For all the vaunted powers of the various types of
magic, there is only just so much that magical practitioners can do
alone. A single practitioner of Common Magic could use Heal on but a
single injured person; if there was a tragic accident, with many
injured patients, that lone practitioner would only be able to heal a
very few patients before spending every last available Magic Point. A
sorcerer may be able to enchant a single Greatsword with significant
power; but even the sorcerer would be hard pressed to enchant
something as big as a galleon, a tower or an entire city in a single
enchantment.
It is possible for groups of people, united in
common purpose, to cooperate and raise energies to power spells on
far greater scales than can be achieved by a solitary practitioner.
This is achieved through concert casting.
Acting In Concert
A concert-cast spell requires multiple
participants - at least two. A shaman and his fetch could cast a
concerted spell; as could a sorcerer and an Apprentice, or even a
Familiar. The more participants, the larger the scale - and the
higher the potential risks of failure.
Concert casting requires the Concert skill:-
Concert (INT + CHA)
The Concert skill allows a group of two or more
casters to pool their magical skills together in order to create a
spell of greatly augmented effect. To form a concert every
contributor must know the Concert skill and one member, usually the
participant with the highest Concert skill, must be designated
coordinator of the gestalt.
Forming the Concert
Each participant must have Concert skill in order
to form the necessary gestalt (group mindset).
The concert takes one minute per participant to
form. The coordinator must make an unaugmented Concert skill roll to
form the Concert at the end of that time period. The haste modifiers
from Legend Core Rulebook, p. 39, may be applied by the coordinator.
All assisting participants add the critical scores of their Concert
skill to the coordinator's skill roll, as per "Assistance,"
Legend Core Rulebook, p. 44. Player character participants (who are
not the concert leader) who succeed in a Concert roll may double that
contribution.
Once fully formed, the gestalt may then invoke
spells or spirit combat as needed using the normal times for those
activities. Thus a sorcery spell cast by metaconcert takes the same
length of time as a solo sorcerer requires.
Whilst joined in concert, the attention of each
member is fully engaged in maintaining its metaphysical structure.
Participants cannot move; and even perception rolls may be subject to
situational penalties as desired by the Games Master. This
vulnerability is a serious weakness. Most metaconcerts are usually
well guarded against assault or interruption; it is very rare to see
a concert spell being cast out in the open, exposed, particularly in
the midst of hectic activity such as on a battlefield.
A metaconcert can only use high magic known to all
of its members. Thus the participants must all have the same Common
Magic skill and the same spell; have Pact skill dedicated to the same
god; know the same Grimoire, or be brothers to the same spirit
tradition - since they cannot otherwise perform the same specific
miracle or spell. This synchronisation is a fundamental part of cult
training. Two wizards who both knew the same spell, but from
different Grimoires, could not coordinate themselves due to different
philosophical approaches.
Every magic the concert performs costs the members
either Magic Points or prepared miracles. Running out of either
causes that participant to be unable to further contribute to the
metaconcert, removing them from the gestalt.
Although metaconcerts operate by combining the
magical skills of their members, the overall success or failure of
the concert depends on the ability of its coordinator. Each magical
effort, be it a spell or initiating a spirit combat, requires the
coordinator to roll against an un-augmented Concert skill. If used to
cast a spell with the Resist Trait, it is this dice roll which
targets must roll against to avoid the magic.
Critical: As for a success, and in addition
a miracle is not placed beyond use, spells consume no Magic Points
and the first attack of any spiritual conflict is unopposed.
Success: The concert manages to retain its
cohesion, the magic is cast or spiritual conflict begins. [Common
Magic/Sorcery] Every participant spends 1 Magic Point: the
coordinator spends the normal amount of Magic Points he would spend
if he were casting the spell solo.
Failure: The concert collapses and nothing
is achieved. [Common Magic/Sorcery] All participants
spend 1 Magic Point.
Fumble: The concert collapses and something
very bad happens. Roll on the Mishap table from Arcania of Legend:
Blood Magic, p. 65.
Once the concert ceases, any spells cast by the
gestalt expire. Likewise, any entities under the domination of a
metaconcert are released from control once the concert ends, unless
bound in some way.
Maximum Group Size
Concert-cast spells allow for magic to be cast on
a far greater scale. The exact scale depends on the number of
participants, and the strength of the concert formed. Concert skill
imposes a maximum limit on the number of possible participants,
depending on how skilled the concert leader is in getting groups of
people to form gestalts.
|
Concert
Skill Level
|
Skill
Range (%)
|
Maximum
Concert Size
|
|
Novice
|
01
- 25
|
1
x CHA
|
|
Competent
|
26
- 50
|
2
x CHA
|
|
Professional
|
51
- 75
|
5
x CHA
|
|
Expert
|
76
- 100
|
10
x CHA
|
|
Master
|
101-125
|
25
x CHA
|
|
Grandmaster
|
126+
|
50
x CHA
|
|
Prodigy
and above
|
each
+25%
|
+50
x CHA
|
Games Masters might want to expand this scale even
further, to characters whose Concert skill is 176+, 201+ and so on;
each such step increases the maximum concert size by an additional
+50 CHA; thus, a nearly-immortal lich king with 19 CHA and 201
Concert skill could potentially gather a vast flock of devoted
followers to form a gestalt - up to 3,800 participants at one time.
Large Scale Gestalts
Big gestalts, paradoxically, form more quickly.
The time scale above - one minute per participant - only applies to
groups of up to three times the coordinator's CHA, maximum. The lich
king above would require almost an hour of chanting to bring a group
of 57 participants into the fold.
The Games Master can rule that groups much bigger
than this simply form the requisite gestalt mindset in a standard one
hour time period, regardless of whether the mass concert is sixty
strong, six hundred strong or six thousand strong.
Expanding Scale
Common Magic
All participants add their Concert skill totals
together. All participants also add their Common Magic skill totals
together. The lower of these two scores is used to determine the
Scale of the effect. The Scale is equal to the critical range of the
accumulated score, whether Concert or Common Magic.
The effect of concerted Common Magic can be
applied in one of two ways: to increase its Magnitude, or to increase
the number of targets affected by a single casting. The caster must
choose how to apply the effect at the time of casting.
Used to increase the Magnitude of a spell with the
Progressive trait, the effective Magnitude of the boosted spell is
equal to the Scale+the Magnitude of that spell known by the
coordinator. Used to affect multiple targets, consult the table
below.
|
Coordinator's
Concert Skill Range
|
Maximum
Targets
|
|
Novice
|
Coordinator's
CHA x Scale
|
|
Competent
|
Coordinator's
CHA x 5 x Scale
|
|
Professional
|
Coordinator's
CHA x 10 x Scale
|
|
Expert
|
Coordinator's
CHA x 50 x Scale
|
|
Master
|
Coordinator's
CHA x 100 x Scale
|
|
Grandmaster
|
Coordinator's
CHA x 500 x Scale
|
and so on. All targets must be visible to the
coordinator.
Divine Magic
The skills used to determine the Scale of the
Divine miracle are Concert and either Lore (deity) or Invoke,
depending on which system of Divine Magic is being used. Again, the
Scale of the effect is equal to the critical range of the lower of
the two accumulated totals.
As with Common Magic, the Scale is added to the
Magnitude of the Divine miracle being cast by the coordinator. Divine
Magic, however, also has the potential to turn a spell which affects
one individual only into an area effect spell with an effective
radius equal to 10 metres x (Magnitude + Scale). Spells which are
already area effect in nature have their effective radius
automatically multiplied by the Scale.
Sorcery
The skills used to determine the Scale of the
Sorcery spell are Concert and Sorcery (Grimoire), with the Scale
being taken as the critical range of the lower of the two accumulated
totals.
The benefits of Scale on Sorcery spells are:-
- Where a spell affects a maximum characteristic
equal to three times the Intensity, the Scale is added to this total
(so, for instance, an Intensity 4 spell which only affects a maximum
SIZ 12 could affect a maximum SIZ 23 if cast with a Scale of 11;
- The Scale affects other factors of the spell
which are dependent on the Intensity, such as the rate of healing of
a Treat Wounds spell, or the radius of Glow, or the maximum Magnitude
of spell affected by Neutralise Magic - these factors are multiplied
by the Scale. So, for instance, an Intensity 4 Glow applied with a
Scale of 11 can cast a light up to 44 metres' radius.
- All participants add their Manipulation factors
to the coordinator's available Manipulation factors. The
coordinator's own available Manipulation factors are multiplied by
the Scale.
Spirit Magic
The Scale is determined as the critical range of
the lower of the accumulated Concert skill or Spirit Binding skills.
The Scale multiplies the maximum POW that the coordinating shaman can
affect as per p. 3 of the free Spirit Magic supplement for Legend.
Thus, without Scale, a shaman with Spirit Binding
45% can only affect a maximum POW equal to three times the critical
range of his Spirit Binding skill, or 15 POW; but with a Scale of 3,
the concerted Spirit Binding skill can allow the coordinator to
multiply this limit by 3, potentially allowing the group to bottle up
entities with a maximum POW
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