Countermagick

[Iguazu]

So, as there are different approaches to the Counter Magic, I'd like to ask you guys which one do you think is better/works best in games, more fitting, etc.

If I'm not mistaken, in Sorcerer's Crusade (The book I use the most when STing Mage as I never run modern settings) it's stated that countermagick is an all or nothing thing. If you manage to have more successes than your opponent you counter his magic, but if you had just short of one success it means all your efforts were in vain and the magical attack will come in full force. A friend of mine was telling me one of these days that he likes the idea of the counter magic dies diminishing the power of the magical attack, so to speak. Another thing he likes to employ is to give mages a free countermagick action during the turn, as happens with vampire counter magic.

All in all, I'd like to hear from you guys how do you handle countermagick in your games, as a Storyteller I try to use the approach I think is better and fair to the game (and ofc, that makes sense thematically), so I'd love to hear the different thoughts you have about Countermagick.

I'm the same way; I only ran a Mage-game in modern-times once, but most of my games are set in the past; however, I only acquired M:tSC in '09, so I had been using M:tA to run past-games.


I use counter-magik the same way out of Ascension; the Mage had to have the same sphere(s) being used to counter it and each success reduces a success of the caster, even if it's of a higher sphere-level.

[Ramnesis]

That's the way I use it in my games. You can protect yourself (with at least some good understanding of Prime). But you can only counter the spells per se, i.e. make it so that the spell fails to be cast, if you know at least as much about what the enemy is doing. This way I avoid absurd situations where "average Joe" can come with his "average friends" and beat the shit out of an archmaster. Another thing regarding what is being discussed here, I've NEVER seen it anywhere in ANY of the Mage books I've read ANYTHING saying you can spend Quintessence to reduce the difficulty of a counterspell.

It's not layed out specifically in the Countermagic, but when you call it a counterspell you make the argument yourself. The Quintessence rules in M20 also say it can "fuel" countermagic, though that could just be referring to the inherent cost of some optional types.

As far as I'm concerned you can interpret this issue either way but I think allowing players to use quintessence in countermagic is more true to the game as I see it. My trial run showed it to be powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. The difference was mostly how quickly the defenders died horribly. Arete 4 mages with full quintessence pools, enough Avatar to spend it as they needed still die unless they come up with something much more creative than turtling up. Indeed, I think it likely that reasonably creative Arete 2 Average Joes would do much better against Voormas without using countermagic than the defensive Arete 4 mages do with it.

What I'm saying is, either way you interpret this, I don't think it changes much in general.

[Ramnesis]

In retrospect, i have not looked in m20 for a long time.
I always houseruled countermagick as something that only affects the aspect of the spell that targets "you"
Is this how it goes by the book without optionals?
So, if Someone casts a fuck everyone life 3 spell, you protect yourself, but everyone else still kinda dies.

In that case, it does start being less insane. You can save yourself, perhaps, but you ain't literally killing an unprepared (as unlikely as it may be) Voormas by paradox explosion,
.Also, i assume that ignoring all Optional rules, it means that strictly speaking i can not protect myself against a nuclear bomb,right? After all the target is not my pattern.


Not sure if there is a ruling about this
,I could almost swear it worked differently in the past. oh well


As for the optional rules it works like this ? " Voormas gets 4 successes on a (fuck everyone) roll) I get 4 on my countermagick roll. I use 2 for myself, one more to extend those 2 successes to a friend, and one more to extend it to another.

Going with the rules as written, you can attempt countermagic on any spell that is cast on you. If the optional Protective Countermagic rules are used you can also attempt countermagic on a spell cast on someone else at a +1 difficulty, a 1 Quintessence cost, and an extra Prime 1 requirement. Countermagic is described as being like a magical soak or dodge roll but the rules state that it removes successes on the attackers spell and that the spell can fizzle due to countermagic. You could view this as a hole in the rules, though I think it is leeway for the ST to handle things in a variety of ways based on the spells and paradigms in question: a countered spell may fizzle by the rules but the ST has the option of describing it fizzling, missing harmlessly, or smashing ineffectively on the counterer's defenses.

A multitarget attack spell with individual targets (say, a Life based heart attack spell) would affect everyone so they'd all be able to use regular countermagic. There are several possibilities to how you could handle that:

1) Each success on everyone's countermagic roll counteracts one success on the attacker's roll. This is consistent with the rules as written.

2) Each success on a countermagic acts as a soak roll for the Mage casting the countermagic, removing successes counting towards the damage aimed towards them. That is consistent with the analogy of countermagic being a dodge or soak roll, though it doesn't really match the rules themselves because it doesn't remove actual attacker successes.

3) One person takes point in the countermagic and everyone else uses the optional protection countermagic rules even though the spell affects them as well. The extra cost and skill requirements reflect the difficulty of not getting in each other's way.


Mass attacks on an area cannot be countered by regular Countermagic as written because they target an area not a person. A generous ST might allow countermagic as a kind of dodge or soak roll that only protects the Mage in question (functioning as option 2 above) but that is not in the rules. The spell would arguably be counterable by Protective Countermagic and would be counterable by Unweaving, but only if those are allowed.

[Muad'Dib]

Right. If you want to protect yourself against an explosion, bullet, or nuke, you don't use Countermagick; you use regular Magick to put up a protective ward. Countermagick is normally very limited in what it messes with.

Magick Effects and other special abilities can also be used to detect, or anticipate, or in some way cancel or counter a threat, a danger, or a problematic occurence / circumances.

Various magical and special sights or senses can definitely be helpful and useful in regard to such issues, matters, events, and situations.

[Dataweaver]

Right. If you want to protect yourself against an explosion, bullet, or nuke, you don't use Countermagick; you use regular Magick to put up a protective ward. Countermagick is normally very limited in what it messes with.

[Herr Meister]

In retrospect, i have not looked in m20 for a long time.
I always houseruled countermagick as something that only affects the aspect of the spell that targets "you"
Is this how it goes by the book without optionals?
So, if Someone casts a fuck everyone life 3 spell, you protect yourself, but everyone else still kinda dies.

In that case, it does start being less insane. You can save yourself, perhaps, but you ain't literally killing an unprepared (as unlikely as it may be) Voormas by paradox explosion,
.Also, i assume that ignoring all Optional rules, it means that strictly speaking i can not protect myself against a nuclear bomb,right? After all the target is not my pattern.


Not sure if there is a ruling about this
,I could almost swear it worked differently in the past. oh well


As for the optional rules it works like this ? " Voormas gets 4 successes on a (fuck everyone) roll) I get 4 on my countermagick roll. I use 2 for myself, one more to extend those 2 successes to a friend, and one more to extend it to another.

That's the way I use it in my games. You can protect yourself (with at least some good understanding of Prime). But you can only counter the spells per se, i.e. make it so that the spell fails to be cast, if you know at least as much about what the enemy is doing. This way I avoid absurd situations where "average Joe" can come with his "average friends" and beat the shit out of an archmaster. Another thing regarding what is being discussed here, I've NEVER seen it anywhere in ANY of the Mage books I've read ANYTHING saying you can spend Quintessence to reduce the difficulty of a counterspell.

[mark]

I use the spreadsheet to generate around 50,000 opposed rolls and take the average results. It tends to be easier to brute force a result that way. The only real calculation was in the expected vaporization chance and there's a trick to that (its far easier to calculate the odds Bob is not vaporized than the odds that he is).

One thing I missed about protective countermagic is that it costs an extra quintessence to use so my previous numbers are wrong. Cobb and Dobby will need to be Avatar 4 and they will run out of quintessence after turn 5. They also need at least 1 in prime, but since Prime is in the spell that doesn't change much.

Adjustment: It looks like Bob is likely dead (not incapacitated) on turn 7, the attack on Cobb plays out the same but starts on turn 8 and ends on turn 9. Voormas will get one difficulty 3 fireball on Dobby which is more than likely lethal.



Paradox is a great balancer. Bob, Cobb, and Dobby should get quite an edge if they can use the threat of it to keep Voormas from bringing his big guns in.

That said, Countermagic functions as a defensive roll. The optional rules on protective countermagic extends that to defending others, but the wording still implies that Bob, Cobb, and Dobby couldn't stop Voormas from casting on himself. Unweaving might work in that scenario, but then they'd have to have at least one dot in every sphere he was using.

Also, once we get into more optimal strategies things get harder to calculate. Given that Voormas is a master Time mage, I think it highly likely he'd have multiple actions in every round and have a few trigger spells available. He might not always get the ideal situation of fighting in his own sanctum, but he will be prepared nonetheless.

In retrospect, i have not looked in m20 for a long time.
I always houseruled countermagick as something that only affects the aspect of the spell that targets "you"
Is this how it goes by the book without optionals?
So, if Someone casts a fuck everyone life 3 spell, you protect yourself, but everyone else still kinda dies.

In that case, it does start being less insane. You can save yourself, perhaps, but you ain't literally killing an unprepared (as unlikely as it may be) Voormas by paradox explosion,
.Also, i assume that ignoring all Optional rules, it means that strictly speaking i can not protect myself against a nuclear bomb,right? After all the target is not my pattern.


Not sure if there is a ruling about this
,I could almost swear it worked differently in the past. oh well


As for the optional rules it works like this ? " Voormas gets 4 successes on a (fuck everyone) roll) I get 4 on my countermagick roll. I use 2 for myself, one more to extend those 2 successes to a friend, and one more to extend it to another.

[Aleph]

I think Paradox would be hard to weaponize against an Archmaster like Voormas.

The way the setting describes Masters+, they're always either on their own pocket universes (where, as per Samurai Jack's Aku: "their evil it's law") or those of friendly Umbral entities (hence why the Storm was such a big deal ... but even afterwards surviving, Masters+ are typically described out there on the other side. Like, say, how Voormas' own encounters in Ascencion plays out).

As I see it, figthing not on their own turf would only happen if they're taking the initiative: Either they're the ones attacking, or they're in the middle of some kind of adventure or work that required their power (like, say, in the middle of trying to kill the 10th Sphere ... )

And at the level when you have the control of whole factions that happens rarely, not very likely w/o some serious preps, and even then not very likely in a place where Paradox would be a serious issue in anything but a botch (that's more likely to happen for Bob & company anyway), at least not w/o, at least, some way to deal with Paradox. It's not like Voormas doesn't know Paradox exists...or the ways to avoid it

I mean, probably an Elder would still win against Ancilla while figthing on the middle of the day, rigth under sunligth, and w/o any protection ... but ...why? :P

[Ramnesis]

First, wow, Thanks for the hard work. Did you actually run the equations yourself?

I use the spreadsheet to generate around 50,000 opposed rolls and take the average results. It tends to be easier to brute force a result that way. The only real calculation was in the expected vaporization chance and there's a trick to that (its far easier to calculate the odds Bob is not vaporized than the odds that he is).

One thing I missed about protective countermagic is that it costs an extra quintessence to use so my previous numbers are wrong. Cobb and Dobby will need to be Avatar 4 and they will run out of quintessence after turn 5. They also need at least 1 in prime, but since Prime is in the spell that doesn't change much.

Adjustment: It looks like Bob is likely dead (not incapacitated) on turn 7, the attack on Cobb plays out the same but starts on turn 8 and ends on turn 9. Voormas will get one difficulty 3 fireball on Dobby which is more than likely lethal.

Wouldn't Bob be more focused on attacking, though? I mean, its a hell lot riskier in the short term but its the only way that offers even a remote possibility of surviving the long term( as in, one minute later)

Of course, Voormas is not necessarily going to be found in his Sanctum. Rarely is a mage so lucky. This creates a problem in the sense that he will get like 12 points of Paradox by turn 12 as well as making his default difficulty 7 rather than 6... to say nothing of what happens if the trio is smart enough to,say, bring a random kidnapped sleeper with them lol. lets call him Donnie
Their countermagick will keep being coincidental, but Voormas will be getting 3 paradox per spell + a default difficulty of 8.

Now, the normal response here would have been for him to Teleport away or whatever... and that's where the ease of countermagick becomes game-breaking. He may well die lol

Paradox is a great balancer. Bob, Cobb, and Dobby should get quite an edge if they can use the threat of it to keep Voormas from bringing his big guns in.

That said, Countermagic functions as a defensive roll. The optional rules on protective countermagic extends that to defending others, but the wording still implies that Bob, Cobb, and Dobby couldn't stop Voormas from casting on himself. Unweaving might work in that scenario, but then they'd have to have at least one dot in every sphere he was using.

Also, once we get into more optimal strategies things get harder to calculate. Given that Voormas is a master Time mage, I think it highly likely he'd have multiple actions in every round and have a few trigger spells available. He might not always get the ideal situation of fighting in his own sanctum, but he will be prepared nonetheless.

[Ragged Robin]

Could you please list ( this would be nice ) from where do you have these rules, qualities, and tendencies in regard to these interactions between supernatural beings ?

Well...

https://youtu.be/85gFeaz0YYs

[mark]

Well if all four go into this juiced then things depend on how fast they are spending. Lets give them all the reasonable advantages we can.

Voormas, spells are coincidental in his sanctum so they are Highest Sphere +3 difficulty. Prime 2/Forces 3 fireball would be 6 base difficulty (if he had a good source of fire preprepared he could do this with Forces 2 for a 5 base difficulty, but we're ignoring that). At Arete 7 he's dropped most of his foci, so he almost certainly can get a free -1 difficulty for using one of those. Since fireball isn't really his theme, we won't presume he is using an individual or unique foci or the appropriate resonance. No bonuses there. The rest of his modifiers will come from quintessence. That means he can get to difficulty 3 (hitting the -3 difficulty cap) for 2 quintessence per cast. Voormas has something like Avatar 7, so there are no issues with him spending at this level.

Bob, Cobb, and Dobby are using Countermagic, which has a base difficulty of 7. Cobb and Dobby are protecting Bob, so they have a +1 difficulty. At Arete 4 they've all dropped one foci. If we are generous we can assume they can apply this to their countermagic, which gives Bob a free -1 difficulty and counters Cobb and Dobby's penalty. To hit the modifier cap, Bob will have to spend 2 quintessence per counter, and Cobb and Dobby will have to spend 3 per counter. They all must have at least a dot in Forces or Prime, which isn't too unbelievable. Bob must have Avatar 2 and Cobb and Dobby need Avatar 3.

Turn 1, they all start with 20 quintessence. Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Quintessence left: V - 18, B - 18, C - 17, D - 17.

Turn 2, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 1.4, total vaporization chance 6.9%. Quintessence left: V - 16, B - 16, C - 14, D - 14.

Turn 3, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 2.1, total vaporization chance 10.1%. Quintessence left: V - 14, B - 14, C - 11, D - 11. This is the point that Bob usually starts having difficulty penalties, but they don't apply to Arete rolls so there are no changes to this calculation yet.

Turn 4, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 2.8, total vaporization chance 13.3%. Quintessence left: V - 12, B - 12, C - 8, D - 8.

Turn 5, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 3.5, total vaporization chance 16.3%. Quintessence left: V - 10, B - 10, C - 5, D - 5.

Turn 6, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 4.2, total vaporization chance 19.2%. Quintessence left: V - 8, B - 8, C - 2, D - 2. Cobb and Dobby can no longer get the full -3 difficulty.

Turn 7, Voormas does on average 1.15 damage to Bob and has a 5.7% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 5.35, total vaporization chance 23.8%. Quintessence left: V - 6, B - 6, C - 0, D - 0. Cobb and Dobby have no quintessence left.

Turn 8, Voormas does on average 2.4 damage to Bob and has a 15.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 7.75, total vaporization chance 35.7%. Quintessence left: V - 4, B - 4, C - 0, D - 0. At this point the expected status of Bob is incapacitated.

Turn 9*, Cobb is now the primary defender. His difficulty is 6, Dobby's is 7. Voormas does on average 5.5 damage to Cobb and has a 42.5% chance of vaporizing him. Quintessence left: V - 2, B - 0, C - 0, D - 0.

Turn 10*, Voormas does on average 5.5 damage to Cobb and has a 42.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Cobb is 11, total Cobb vaporization chance 66.9%. Quintessence left: V - 0, B - 0, C - NaN, D - 0. Voormas is out of quintessence. The expected status of Cobb is dead.

Turn 11, Dobby is now the primary defender, his difficulty is 6. Voormas is out of quintessence, so his difficulty is 5. Voormas does on average 5.3 damage to Dobby and has a 39.6% chance of vaporizing him. Quintessence left: V - 0, B - NaN, C - NaN, D - 0.

Turn 12, Voormas does on average 5.3 damage to Dobby and has a 39.6% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Dobby is 10.6, total Dobby vaporization chance 63.5%. Quintessence left: V - 0, B - 0, C - NaN, D - NaN. The expected status of Dobby is dead.

*I do not have my spreadsheet set up to give Cobb and Dobby different difficulties, so I averaged the results between their two difficulties. It's not completely accurate but is unlikely to make too much of a difference once the death spiral has started.



Twelve turns may seem like a lot, however Voormas is a time master, so I am imagining him doing this while reading a book and barely looking up. For what it is worth I think three prepared Arete 4 mages should be able to do quite a lot against Voormas if they can get him unprepared, but if everyone pursues this suboptimal strategy the challengers will lose badly.

First, wow, Thanks for the hard work. Did you actually run the equations yourself?

Wouldn't Bob be more focused on attacking, though? I mean, its a hell lot riskier in the short term but its the only way that offers even a remote possibility of surviving the long term( as in, one minute later)

Of course, Voormas is not necessarily going to be found in his Sanctum. Rarely is a mage so lucky. This creates a problem in the sense that he will get like 12 points of Paradox by turn 12 as well as making his default difficulty 7 rather than 6... to say nothing of what happens if the trio is smart enough to,say, bring a random kidnapped sleeper with them lol. lets call him Donnie
Their countermagick will keep being coincidental, but Voormas will be getting 3 paradox per spell + a default difficulty of 8.

Now, the normal response here would have been for him to Teleport away or whatever... and that's where the ease of countermagick becomes game-breaking. He may well die lol

Voormas in particular has a trump card in the form of his avatayara/monstrous form, but what if it was an archmage with slightly different stats for whom this was not an option? I understand that much more so than Vampire, resource management and preparation are of sublime importance in mage, but this seems a bit far fetched in my pov.


I mean lets say i am a 900 year old vampire with 30 dots of disciplines facting 3 Ancilia with 10 each of the same generation as me. Per my estimation, i would have an easier time beating them than Voormas would our trio, assuming that they are not minmaxed
(Ok, admittedly if all 4 of us have time to blood buff then the results might be different, but i would argue that stocking quintessence is easier, relatively speaking, than knowing precisely when to spend blood in preparation of a battle that will happen right *now* )

Not to mention that while i can agree with,say, 3 arete 4 characters being strong, what would happen if it was 6 arete 2 ones instead ?? (Please don't go to the trouble of running the math, i know the results would be a bit similar, but it still seems a bit far fetched

[Muad'Dib]

Countermagick is tricky. I tend to do reduce success even if you don't out roll the spell.

-other supernaturals have a specific sphere their 'spells' are vulnerable. This rules tends to apply more. to mystic flavoured powers such as Rites and pacts than inherant powers.

Could you please list ( this would be nice ) from where do you have these rules, qualities, and tendencies in regard to these interactions between supernatural beings ?

[Ramnesis]

I think Herr meister's issue was less about the arete 4 (which you are right is not a starting character) and more about the fact that you can do it with just,say, forces 1 prime 1, or life 1 for a heart attack etc.

Concerning them juicing up with quintessence, this is trickier because it depends on how difficult you make it for people to find quint i suppose. If i am not mistaken, Voormas has prime 5 so i think he can draw a few extra from the universe. Still you have a point about the "resource management thing", though i am curious as to what the final result will be if all 3 + Voormas (from book of chantries) are juiced up to 20.
This, assumes no prior preparation, (which admittedly, is a gross injustice to an Arhchmaster, but i am curious about seeing all parameters)

Well if all four go into this juiced then things depend on how fast they are spending. Lets give them all the reasonable advantages we can.

Voormas, spells are coincidental in his sanctum so they are Highest Sphere +3 difficulty. Prime 2/Forces 3 fireball would be 6 base difficulty (if he had a good source of fire preprepared he could do this with Forces 2 for a 5 base difficulty, but we're ignoring that). At Arete 7 he's dropped most of his foci, so he almost certainly can get a free -1 difficulty for using one of those. Since fireball isn't really his theme, we won't presume he is using an individual or unique foci or the appropriate resonance. No bonuses there. The rest of his modifiers will come from quintessence. That means he can get to difficulty 3 (hitting the -3 difficulty cap) for 2 quintessence per cast. Voormas has something like Avatar 7, so there are no issues with him spending at this level.

Bob, Cobb, and Dobby are using Countermagic, which has a base difficulty of 7. Cobb and Dobby are protecting Bob, so they have a +1 difficulty. At Arete 4 they've all dropped one foci. If we are generous we can assume they can apply this to their countermagic, which gives Bob a free -1 difficulty and counters Cobb and Dobby's penalty. To hit the modifier cap, Bob will have to spend 2 quintessence per counter, and Cobb and Dobby will have to spend 3 per counter. They all must have at least a dot in Forces or Prime, which isn't too unbelievable. Bob must have Avatar 2 and Cobb and Dobby need Avatar 3.

Turn 1, they all start with 20 quintessence. Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Quintessence left: V - 18, B - 18, C - 17, D - 17.

Turn 2, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 1.4, total vaporization chance 6.9%. Quintessence left: V - 16, B - 16, C - 14, D - 14.

Turn 3, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 2.1, total vaporization chance 10.1%. Quintessence left: V - 14, B - 14, C - 11, D - 11. This is the point that Bob usually starts having difficulty penalties, but they don't apply to Arete rolls so there are no changes to this calculation yet.

Turn 4, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 2.8, total vaporization chance 13.3%. Quintessence left: V - 12, B - 12, C - 8, D - 8.

Turn 5, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 3.5, total vaporization chance 16.3%. Quintessence left: V - 10, B - 10, C - 5, D - 5.

Turn 6, Voormas does on average 0.7 damage to Bob and has a 3.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 4.2, total vaporization chance 19.2%. Quintessence left: V - 8, B - 8, C - 2, D - 2. Cobb and Dobby can no longer get the full -3 difficulty.

Turn 7, Voormas does on average 1.15 damage to Bob and has a 5.7% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 5.35, total vaporization chance 23.8%. Quintessence left: V - 6, B - 6, C - 0, D - 0. Cobb and Dobby have no quintessence left.

Turn 8, Voormas does on average 2.4 damage to Bob and has a 15.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Bob is 7.75, total vaporization chance 35.7%. Quintessence left: V - 4, B - 4, C - 0, D - 0. At this point the expected status of Bob is incapacitated.

Turn 9*, Cobb is now the primary defender. His difficulty is 6, Dobby's is 7. Voormas does on average 5.5 damage to Cobb and has a 42.5% chance of vaporizing him. Quintessence left: V - 2, B - 0, C - 0, D - 0.

Turn 10*, Voormas does on average 5.5 damage to Cobb and has a 42.5% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Cobb is 11, total Cobb vaporization chance 66.9%. Quintessence left: V - 0, B - 0, C - NaN, D - 0. Voormas is out of quintessence. The expected status of Cobb is dead.

Turn 11, Dobby is now the primary defender, his difficulty is 6. Voormas is out of quintessence, so his difficulty is 5. Voormas does on average 5.3 damage to Dobby and has a 39.6% chance of vaporizing him. Quintessence left: V - 0, B - NaN, C - NaN, D - 0.

Turn 12, Voormas does on average 5.3 damage to Dobby and has a 39.6% chance of vaporizing him. Total expected damage to Dobby is 10.6, total Dobby vaporization chance 63.5%. Quintessence left: V - 0, B - 0, C - NaN, D - NaN. The expected status of Dobby is dead.

*I do not have my spreadsheet set up to give Cobb and Dobby different difficulties, so I averaged the results between their two difficulties. It's not completely accurate but is unlikely to make too much of a difference once the death spiral has started.



Twelve turns may seem like a lot, however Voormas is a time master, so I am imagining him doing this while reading a book and barely looking up. For what it is worth I think three prepared Arete 4 mages should be able to do quite a lot against Voormas if they can get him unprepared, but if everyone pursues this suboptimal strategy the challengers will lose badly.

[Herr Meister]

I think Herr meister's issue was less about the arete 4 (which you are right is not a starting character) and more about the fact that you can do it with just,say, forces 1 prime 1, or life 1 for a heart attack etc.

Exactly, I don't see any sense in it and that's why I change it in my games.

[mark]

Arete 4 mages are significantly stronger than starting characters. Also this is a test of Voormas yawning and absentmindedly lobbing a fireball vs three weaker characters putting everything they have into stopping him. Do you want the numbers if V can gather a couple of rolls together in an extended cast?

I think Herr meister's issue was less about the arete 4 (which you are right is not a starting character) and more about the fact that you can do it with just,say, forces 1 prime 1, or life 1 for a heart attack etc.

Concerning them juicing up with quintessence, this is trickier because it depends on how difficult you make it for people to find quint i suppose. If i am not mistaken, Voormas has prime 5 so i think he can draw a few extra from the universe. Still you have a point about the "resource management thing", though i am curious as to what the final result will be if all 3 + Voormas (from book of chantries) are juiced up to 20.
This, assumes no prior preparation, (which admittedly, is a gross injustice to an Arhchmaster, but i am curious about seeing all parameters)