I have to firmly agree with Josh here. With 3 ranks to start, an 8 stat, 3 ranks / tier and 1 rank from somewhere else you're sitting at a 32 passive in Tier 4. I hadn't done the math on the higher autocasts. Sorry for the lack of thoroughness, I'm a bit under the weather. With that in mind, CTN for combining 2 tier 4 spells should probably be 38 - 40.

Not sure how to make the math work. Highest base + base tier + 2x lower tier? That would put the CTN combining 2 Tier 1 spells at 17 + 1 + 1*2 or 20, 21 for a base 18 spell.

At Tier 4 it'd be 26 + 4 + 2*4 = 38.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Some combination of Highest CTN + X*Tier (Low spell) + Y*Tier (High Spell) is what it probably needs to be, agreed.

Here's some examples (I'm going with 18/21/24/27 as the base CTN's)

Personally, I like X=1, Y=1 but could live with X=2, Y=1 (though that makes T4+T4 = 39 again). X=2, Y=2 seems a little too high (especially for anything above T1+T1).

Then again if the Passive is actually 32 for a caster, 39 isn't that terrible. With a +19 and a d10 Primary, you have a 25% to hit 39.

John

Maybe it's just me but, unless the advanced spell is really kick-ass, I'm not going to try casting it unless I've got at least a 50% chance at success (unless I'm really desperate) when I can auto-cast the base spells.

OK, I'm going to try something revolutionary. First off, no math. I can do the math later if people are confused, but I will trust in the intelligence of the people in this discussion, so stick with just numbers. Here is a simple, elegant solution that
A. Makes all advanced spells more difficult to cast than they are now.
B. Scales.
C. Keeps high tier spells from being easier to cast which I think is generally agreed a way to make magic get more out of control than it is.
D. Easy to understand.
E. NOT a change to the base system of creating advanced spells like the current proposed change is.
F. A very minor change.

The proposed change would be simply this.

Errata - Arcanis Core Rulebook, page 346. Change the second bullet point under advanced spells to "CTN: Equal to the sum of both CTNs - 12."

That's it. There are very fer advanced spells you can do with CTN 17 spells, so you end up getting starting advanced spells at 24 CTN's. Even if you had a spell with two 17 CTN's (22 total CTN for the advanced spell) that would still be out of the rage of any 1.0 tier starting character to do with passive casting, and even a characters that fully devoted themselves to their casting skill would just be able to do that at tier 1. (you could do a 2 CTN 18 spell if you took spell affinity with that advanced spell)

Mind you, if you think this is too much, this is just slightly easier that the +6 proposal. (by 1 CTN for two CTN 17 spells) It makes advanced spells possible, but the province of casting specialists. It fits in the system, is in the range Pedro was looking for, and it's an easy change. No wheels need to get reinvented.

Hope you like it.

This was proposed by Pedro in another post.

The issue with that at the time was it scaled *way* up with Tier. 2 Tier III spells would be CTN 36 and 2 Tier IV spells would be 42.

John

That was already proposed earlier in one of the threads about advanced spells. Personally, the significant increase of CTNs for low-tier advanced spells is the one aspect of the proposed change that I hate. Advanced spells are on of the things that makes the Arcanis magic system interesting - I'd hate to see them essentially unusable until late T1 and marginally useful until late T2 (T1+T1+adaptation = ~24 CTN (current rules), ~23 CTN (highest CTN+tier+tier), ~27 CTN (CTN+6 or sum-12)).

To me, I think the rest of the advanced spell errata puts enough limits on them that an increase in CTN for low tier is unnecessary. However, one thing that did come up earlier today is that the current speed method (slowest+half fastest) ends up making a lot of advanced spells interruptible (which slows them down and makes them less action-efficient) whereas the new method (slowest speed) does not. If it is deemed that advanced spells need something more to downgrade them, I'd far rather see them made slower than given a higher CTN.

I'm on the other side of the fence. I'd rather see them have a higher CTN and need to wait a bit to cast them automatically than have them be interruptible.

John

Actually I have a second proposal that would help with that, and make those who want to focus on advanced spells more viable.

Change the benefit of Metaphysical Understanding from

Benefit: Any time you attempt to cast an Advanced spell, you gain a +2 bonus to all Arcanum Action Skill Rolls to successfully cast the spell. Also, when attempting to counter or dismiss an Advanced spell, you gain +3 bonus to your Arcanum Action Skill Roll.

To

Benefit: Any time you attempt to cast an Advanced spell, reduce the final CTN to cast the spell by 2. This effect stacks with that of Spell affinity. Also, when attempting to counter or dismiss an Advanced spell, you gain +3 bonus to your Arcanum Action Skill Roll.

As to high tier advanced spells would be difficult to cast, my response is, good. High tier advanced spells are POWERFUL. With the addition of this change, a maxed out character would not be able to reliably (using passive) cast one of these till tier 5, and that is not a bad thing. It is a good reason to keep focusing on magic at your fifth tier. They would have a decent chance of getting it off with various talents and spells, (even better than 50/50) but there is going to be a chance for failure, and for doing two T4 spells at once when you are T4, that sounds about right.

Even with this change, it's still a bit more difficult to cast advanced spells than it is now, not everyone will be casting them, but it is now available to those who want to focus their character on advanced magic theory. (Which I think is a very cool concept - not just any spell slinger, but someone who understands the deeper theories.)