Frequency/amount of sorcerous aging

[nsruf]

I'm still learning TROS at the moment, and now have some "magical" questions for the long-time players and seneschals:

How often and by how much do sorcerers in your games age on average?

What is the most extreme aging somebody has undergone, and was it "worth it"?

Does the aging really encourage thoughtful use of magic? Is the penalty to little or too much in your opinion?

Any insights would be welcome.

[Spartan]

Neither of the sorcerers in our campaign have aged a day from magic use.  The greater risk is being discoverd by the masses as a sorcerer, rather than the actual aging itself, IMO.  Just confine one's spell casting to emergencies or SA-fuelled moments, and the fledgling arcanist will have a long and interesting carreer.  The penalty seems ok relative to the benefits derived from magic in a magic-poor setting.  :)

-Mark

[Dain]

Wow! How is that possible? Without actually having seen spell casting yet, it seems like most usefull spells have a CTN of no less than 7 (again, newbie impressions with no solid examples to back it up, so I could be wrong), meaning the aging target number is also 7. To get 7 successess you'd normally have to roll at least 18 or so ten sides (just based on probability of 4 in 10 chance) to resist all that, and then you'd have to have more dice left to cast with to get a successful casting. Are your sorcery pools really that big or is the newbie (me) misunderstanding something major here?

Edit added after original post:
In samples I ran for myself (I did them wrong I assume from what you are saying), sorcery pool was about 9 and ART was about 3 or so for a beginning character, so even if I used only 1 die to cast that left only 8 to 11 to resist aging with, for an average aging of about 3 months or more on EVERY casting.

Also, don't your sorcerers ever draw (auto aging)?

[Tash]

I may be wrong, but I don't think you need the same number of successes as your CTN.  I belive one is sufficent to cast a spell.  So rolling 3-4 dice to cast (which give you a decent chance of success on a CTN of 7) would leave 6-7 left to resist aging assuming you had a pool of 10 die.

[nsruf]

I may be wrong, but I don't think you need the same number of successes as your CTN.

For casting the spell, that is correct. But you make a separate roll to resist aging and each success on that roll only reduces aging by 1 month (starting from CTN months). So any of the more interesting spells is pretty much guaranteed to age you for a couple of months. At least that's how I understand it to work right now.

What I am wondering about is whether anybody has seen a sorcerer age to "where it hurts", i.e. above 40. Because aging isn't much of a penalty until then. How carefree does this make the casters?

[Dain]

...well, if my above numbers aren't TOTAL bull, and if you had a fairly active caster (pretty much all his character has is geared towards casting), I'd say he'd be a dead man in a heartbeat. Aging rolls start at 40 (I think). 3 months is .25 of a year, so 4 castings is an entire year. For a pure caster, I'd expect no less than 4 spells a game, and in fact probably a lot more, but let's go with 4 for the math, meaning your character ages one year every time you play. Assuming you start at age 21, that's 19 games max before you start to die. If you made a character older for role play purposes, your time is even shorter (I'm thinking about starting one at 30...on my tenth game I will begin to die unless I'm totally off base here).

...again, keep in mind I'm so new to this system that nothing I say may be right, and I have yet to see actual gameplay casting, so all I am going on is my interpretation of what I THINK I read in the core book.

[Tash]

You are probably correct, though your idea of a career caster is probably not quite right within the general spirit of these rules.  If you used your magical prowess with this frequency you likely would end up dead fast.

From what I understand the idea of a "career caster" in TROS is very different from that in most games, just like the idea of a "career fighter" is also very different.  You want to use these options (magic or swordplay) as little as possible as both are extremely dangerous and have the chance to kill your character.  My old sensei told all his students "the most important thing I can ever teach you is how not to get into a fight".  That knowledge almost certainly saved me from death ot prison more than once, I can't say the same for any of my other martial arts training.  
Its the same in TROS: those who survive are those who learn how not to get into a fight.
With this in mind, an average of 4 castings a game sounds a little high to me for a supposedly low magic world.  Think along the lines of Gandalf or Belgarath rather than the classic RPG spell flinger: both wielded tremendous power, but overcame most of the obstacles before them through the use of their intellect and other skills.  They only resorted to magic in moments of great need (which would likely allow your character to call on SAs for additional dice).  The essence of the riddle is the question "What is worth dying for?"  

If you want to have a more magic friendly campaign just work out house rules with your Seneschal that make things more caster friendly, such only requiring aging rolls when your character casts a non-formalized spell.  Drastically different from the book rules, but that's what RPGs are about isn't it?  Personally I think the large risks implied by the normal rules.  It makes each casting a potentially agonizing personal choice: your closest friend lies at the brink of death, a gaping sword wound in his side.  Which question is cooler from a narrative standpoint:

"Do I save him using my magic, possibly at the cost of my own life?" or "Do I use one of my healing spells to save him, possibly forcing the party to rest before proceeding today?"

That's the perspective you need to view everything in: this isn't a game, its a story.

[Brian Leybourne]

Spellcasters in TROS need to be wily and careful. Now and then you'll have an amergency and have to blow some serious aging with a quick spell, but in general you want to think out your spells, carefully finetune the CTN, use gestures and such, maybe do it as a spell of three or ritual for the extra dice those give you, etc. If you're careful, you can go a long long time without incurring aging.

Incautious and/or "flashy" spellcasters don't usually die of old age either of course, they just end up with a well-done stake...

Brian.

[Spartan]

Wow! How is that possible?

It's possible by reducing CTNs.  The most common spell my caster uses has a CTN of 0 after formalization.  His next most common spell has a CTN of 4.  It's quite possible to soak aging rolls with a CTN of 4, though you'll have to blow your whole Spell Pool to do it for sure.  My sorcerer won't cast a spell except in dire need.  Ususally he relies on cold steel, which he is rather proficient with.  He's not bad with that crossbow, either.  Also, store spells in objects with rituals to minimize aging.

Also, don't your sorcerers ever draw (auto aging)?

Hell, no.

-Mark

[Jaeger]

In three different campaigns w/ sorcerers ageing happened but never became an issue with the caster.

 IMHO in the average character life span, until a player retires him a PC sorcerer never undergoes any negative effects of ageing. Spartans post hits the nail on the head - players go to great lengths to reduce CTN's and only cast with minimal ageing effeccts - even if they do take big hits every now and then until they reach 40 ageing has no practical effect.

 And if a sorcerer does cast that much he is likely to die of many other things beforehand, before he dies of self-induced old age.

 Now, has anyone heard of, or played a sorcerer who has undergone the negative effects of ageing through spell use???

[Dain]

What I'm getting from all this has GOT to be wrong:

A. don't create a character with every aspect of rollup dedicated to sorcery only, because casting will almost never actually occur. Unless you actually have some other skills and weapon skills to fall back on you'll be sitting at the table feeling worthless with nothing to do almost always.
B. Only cast spells so weak in effect that their CTN is tiny enough to not age you, and even then only do it with gesturing and vocalization, and possibly only when SA's help you too....and even then only cast in life or death circumstances.

Geez, that's pretty bleak. In other words, don't run a non-Fey PC spell caster. Only Fey (who don't worry about aging), NPC's (who don't have to worry about surviving multiple adventures), or "hobbiests" (those who dabble at best in magic, never touching anything of respectable power) should be spell casters at all.

"A" above is pretty reasonable, and probably isn't far off (correct me if I'm wrong), so I'm guessing my "B" above is wrong...unless this system REALLY doesn't want non-Fey PC's to cast spells. Perhaps where I'm being thrown is the core rule book. When I was seeing 7 as a average for spells of moderate power, those are really "unformulated" aren't they?...meaning that the CTN's would drop somewhat once formulated, so that combined with formalization that gesturing and vocalization would drop them down to 3's for spells of one, and  4's or less (depending on how many vagaries were involved) for spells of three. Is that where I went south?

Added Edit:
Oh, as long as I'm here. Gesturing and vocalization lower the CTN...does the casting time (based on CTN) remain the same? I assume it does. How about for symbol drawing (I'd actually expect an increase in time here...true or not true?...or not thought of by the designers yet?)?

[nsruf]

Interesting analysis! I didn't see it as quite that bleak so far, but you have a point.

What I'm getting from all this has GOT to be wrong:

A. don't create a character with every aspect of rollup dedicated to sorcery only, because casting will almost never actually occur. Unless you actually have some other skills and weapon skills to fall back on you'll be sitting at the table feeling worthless with nothing to do almost always.

Well, you are going to have some impressive mental attributes and no fewer skills than the other characters, but melee combat will be a big no-no with a CP of 5. Which seems a major drawback in *this* game.

B. Only cast spells so weak in effect that their CTN is tiny enough to not age you, and even then only do it with gesturing and vocalization, and possibly only when SA's help you too....and even then only cast in life or death circumstances.

I haven't played the game yet, but from what I gather doing *anything* important without the help of SA is not recommended. But you are right, even then the interesting spells would age you a little.

Geez, that's pretty bleak. In other words, don't run a non-Fey PC spell caster. Only Fey (who don't worry about aging),

Even fey suffer aging effects from spellcasting, they just don't age naturally. So there is no safe way around aging.

NPC's (who don't have to worry about surviving multiple adventures), or "hobbiests" (those who dabble at best in magic, never touching anything of respectable power) should be spell casters at all.

Or you can opt to go down in a blaze of glory;) ... and take everything within 10 miles with you! It seems like being a sorcerer in TROS is a lot like having a nuclear bomb.

"A" above is pretty reasonable, and probably isn't far off (correct me if I'm wrong), so I'm guessing my "B" above is wrong...unless this system REALLY doesn't want non-Fey PC's to cast spells. Perhaps where I'm being thrown is the core rule book. When I was seeing 7 as a average for spells of moderate power, those are really "unformulated" aren't they?...meaning that the CTN's would drop somewhat once formulated, so that combined with formalization that gesturing and vocalization would drop them down to 3's for spells of one, and  4's or less (depending on how many vagaries were involved) for spells of three. Is that where I went south?

I hope so. Sorcery strikes an odd balance between "useless in practice" and "way too powerful". That's why I started this thread, to see how the aging penalty balances things. So far, the answers were to be very careful and don't forget the social consequences. I had hoped for some contrasting experiences, like has anybody seen a sorcerer go for the "rule by fear and screw the consequences" approach?

[Dain]

aw rats...got caught up in my own logic...aging wouldn't be reduced by gesturing and vocalization...only the CTN would drop, not the aging TN (formalization would drop it a little I think...or is that wrong too). So I must be goofed up somewhere else. Aging still seems to be a complete deterant instead of a moderate one.

[nsruf]

Hm, as I understand the rules, aging TN is the modified CTN, so the argument about formulaic spells and using gestures to reduce aging does hold. OTOH, being distracted would increase the amount of aging incurred.

[Spartan]

Hm, as I understand the rules, aging TN is the modified CTN

I concur.  I guess to summarize the whole thread:  When creating a sorcerer, make him well-rounded enough to be viable without sorcery.  Don't use sorcery for shits and giggles.  Lower your CTNs, and above all... don't get caught. =)

-Mark