The Alchemical Rituals

General
21

It strikes me that if the Mask of Gold and Lead, worked by increasing the volume of resources you could convert rather than making them easier to cast, it would be more worthwhile as an item. For someone performing the Alchemical rituals enough, the expected savings in mana, might even out the cost of the mask. (Although for that the retrograde wheel still needs to be more desirable.)

I still think those rituals are too close together in mag and easy to solo, for a conventional mask. At most it helps you perform 1 of them, and lets you move the other one out of the regio.

22

I agree.

23

[quote=“Jim”]

Execptions being that the Strigine Mask is pretty nice if you want to stick the Archmage of Day in the Regio and have him run Eyes of the Sun and Moon all day long, the Cowl of Ashes is a cheap way to boost up to the Mag 20 for Whisphers Through the Black Gate, and the Captain’s Mask is a good one for a solo Spendid Panoply spammer.[/quote]

The first mag 4’s are on the field, so normal staves + mask + regio is now possible, but that’s a very edge use. :smiley:

24

[quote=“McGonigle”]It strikes me that if the Mask of Gold and Lead, worked by increasing the volume of resources you could convert rather than making them easier to cast, it would be more worthwhile as an item. For someone performing the Alchemical rituals enough, the expected savings in mana, might even out the cost of the mask. (Although for that the retrograde wheel still needs to be more desirable.)
[/quote]

As a slight tangent, would the Masks work better if they worked by reducing Target Magnitude by 2 instead of increasing Lore by 1? (Obviously with a “to a minimum of 1” clause, otherwise some smart alec would go around casting “Streams of Silver” on every business in The League for free!).

It would at least make them economically viable, since if you got enough use out of those specific rituals you would eventually recoup the cost of the materials in the mana saved…

25

It would make them massively viable, but would need a 1/day limit or similar to stop solocast spamming on single targets being better than larger rituals.

26

It’s even simpler than that, since the masks are essentially producing crystal mana, they would be horrendously abusable without a 1/day limit on them. Now how bad that abuse would be depends on the ritual in question (For the mask of Lead and Gold it probably still averages out as not really worthwhile, but the Divination mask by contrast.)

Even at 1/day they still have the potential to generate a lot of mana, - 14 in 4 events and if you cast a ritual in a well timed player event or two this exacerbates the problem. At less than 20 artisan resources they potentially act as an economic item, letting you convert resources into more mana*. Even at 20 they would be comparatively cheap for what they do.

Also for an item designed to bolster the solo ritualist, restricting them to 1 use a day* seems really weird from a design perspective.

*and for most of them you would have too.

27

One of the design concepts for the masks was to help smaller covens and solo ritualists perform useful or valuable rituals that otherwise might remain the domain of larger covens. That’s why they add a rank all the time, rather than once a day, but cost less than the ritual staves. They can also be useful to larger covens, when I haven’t screwed up and connected them to rituals that lack a variable quality.

A Choleric staff requires over 40 ingots to make, while a Mercantilist’s Mask costs 15, which is significantly less. If you were a solo ritualist or a small coven who wanted to perform the useful streams of silver and rivers of gold spells, one or two of the masks is not a dreadful idea. They also stack if you’re lucky enough to have a staff, because they fill different “slots”.

I don’t like magic items that offer free magnitude reduction - for a start they would always be a per day item because they generate “wealth”- mana crystals, effectively. A crafted item that offered a magnitude reduction would be “too good” in that it not only allows you to perform rituals at magnitudes you can’t reach unaided (as the masks do) but it would also mean your group would be able to cast more of them at a lower mana crystal output, and that to my mind makes them too powerful as crafted items.

In computer game terms, the “magnitude reduction” quality is attached to specific rituals and Eternal boons and I think it is likely to stay that way at least for the moment.

28

Unfortunately, they are often a dreadful idea.
Let’s assume a price for mana of about 28, the base price being about 26. We all know Mana Is Expensive, but I am being generous and statting it to the start of the game.

Mercantilist’s Mask is 15 Resources, so again if we ignore the on-field prices it’s worth 270 Rings.

You can use it to add another rank to Streams of Silver, which pays off 10 Rings more by my calculations. That means you have to cast 27 Streams of Silver rituals per year and take all the profit from those rituals just in order to pay for the mask. That’s all but one of your coven bonds for the entire year.

In order to add another target to Rivers of Gold, you’re going to need 4 masks. Each new target adds a more respectable 68 Rings, so 17 per Mask. Which means that our theoretical Massive Autumn Coven only needs to do 16 casts per year with at least 2 Businesses per cast, provided they again keep all the extra money. Bear in mind of course that if you’re selling the rituals, your profits per cast will be lower.

Assuming a low price for mana and base prices for crafting materials, it is possible to make a small overall profit on the masks if:
-You spend all your coven bonds for the entire year spamming maxed out business buffs.
-You charge top dollar for the privilege.
-None of the materials for the mask or mana are above base price on the field.

I thought that Straw Masks were a brilliant deal for the exact reason you suggest when I first saw them, and was talking them up massively. Then one of our group told me he didn’t reckon they were worth it and I ran the numbers for them. At which point I went :open_mouth:, because even assuming cheap on-field prices you have to do furiously optimised rituals AND usually have six masks to be worth it (6 being the breakpoint for adding another Farm to Gathering the Harvest). They are expensive enough you won’t break even unless the entire coven chips in on some and organises like mad. At that point I realised I’d save more money in the long run and have more fun with a Covenstone (Especially if I had it Hallowed), or a Phial of the Sun, or basically anything else.

There is one good use I can come up with for any economic mask and it is “I have Lore 4, the Archmage of Autumn’s Staff, and I am sitting in the Imperial Regio spamming Gathering the Harvest on anyone we couldn’t fit in the 2 big buffs a day”. You can do similar with the Strigine Mask and turn a Day Mage into a Military Intel Vending Machine spamming Eyes of the Sun and Moon until we find out what territories are shrouded.

They do have a possible use in giving you the extra 1 rank you need if you’re 1 Lore short of a big buff, but when you’re running buff rituals your more likely failure modes are “we are 2-4 Lore short because one player couldn’t make it this Event” or “we have an unexpected extra person, the mask isn’t any use today” or “One of the silly sods we were targeting has failed to turn up”. Any of these problems renders the mask pointless for the current casting.

We’ve got one person in the Marches that I know uses one still, and she knows full well it’s a waste of cash but enjoys it it as a prestige item and signature thing for the PC. So it’s getting a use, but as expensive jewellery, rather than “useful”. On the other hand, Staves or Rings might be expensive, but they will be handy no matter what you want to do, and are useful for those “must have” tactical rituals where profit isn’t a factor. A Melancholic Staff might be expensive, but it’ll pay me back in mana crystals if I take it onto the battlefield and make my Anvil of Estavus more efficient. A Straw Mask can only pay out on one sort of ritual.

If I could invent a Ritual Mask, I’d choose +1 Lore on
-Anvil of Estavus, Hands of Sacred Life, etc.
-Battlefield Explosion Rituals.
-Campaign-Scale Rituals.
Why? Because then they don’t turn into furious bean-counting in pursuit of tiny profits. They become passports to do the “Pull this off, and damn the cost” Awesome Rituals. I agree that the current rituals that have masks are indeed valuable and useful, but the Masks don’t provide much of a benefit.

29

[quote=“Jim”]Unfortunately, they are often a dreadful idea.
…

There is one good use I can come up with for any economic mask and it is “I have Lore 4, the Archmage of Autumn’s Staff, and I am sitting in the Imperial Regio spamming Gathering the Harvest on anyone we couldn’t fit in the 2 big buffs a day”. You can do similar with the Strigine Mask and turn a Day Mage into a Military Intel Vending Machine spamming Eyes of the Sun and Moon until we find out what territories are shrouded.
[/quote]

The Strigine Mask is probably the most useful for a solo ritualist / small Day Coven, for the simple reason that all the rituals it enhances scale up to pierce shrouding - so sometimes that extra 2 magnitude really makes a difference.

Even then, I personally wouldn’t bother (given the number of times I get asked to cast Reading The Weave on objects with … interesting … RP effects attached, I find a Circlet Of Falling Snow is a much better use of my jewellery slot)

I agree that the economic ones are generally not worth investing in unless you have a very specific use in mind - I have considered building a Freeborn Spring Mage with a fleet which relies on the Corsair’s Bloody Mask, given that the enhanced fleet would bring in extra mana to cast the rituals and enough extra materials to renew the masks at the end of the year…

30

Being in a small economic coven (although don’t tell the coven I said that), you are making a very flawed assumption, that the coven is exactly an entire extra targets worth of mag off the desired ritual. If they happen to near a sweet spot the calculations are more worth while. If you are just short of casting the second rank of rivers of gold, that’s 4 casts on two businesses in a year.
Now, yes people might not turn up but you could theoretically pay it off in one event, and also if I could do anything about it I could get a fairly good idea on who is likely to attend each event. If there was a mask of “Extra Vigilance” I can run the will this break even calculation now. (Hell if I find Erica can’t make events overlapping with Viv, it’s worth it because players can’t make events.)

They aren’t great, by nature they are incredibly situational, and your coven really has to overlap with the places the designers decided to put a mask, even worse look from the artisans point of view, you have a slot filled up by something there’s barely any demand for. I still view the general trend of increasing the price per extra ritual a mistake, when really you probably are only using half the mask (Bar the day one.)

A set of 6 realm masks with the effect of +1 rank of that lore to performing a ritual chosen when the mask is created (probably under mag 30 to keep in the same design space.) Then you can commission a mask or a set of masks to help you get to the ritual you’d really love your coven to be able to cast but are looking at another year before you can do it, or the ritual you’d love to be able to solo cast but don’t want to wait 2 years.
I’d be willing to pay for the ritual mask that my group needs (or really, really wants) the problem is at present you almost need to design the coven to run into the situation where a mask would help.

[quote=“Jim”]-Anvil of Estavus, Hands of Sacred Life, etc.
-Battlefield Explosion Rituals.
-Campaign-Scale Rituals.
Why? Because then they don’t turn into furious bean-counting in pursuit of tiny profits. They become passports to do the “Pull this off, and damn the cost” Awesome Rituals. I agree that the current rituals that have masks are indeed valuable and useful, but the Masks don’t provide much of a benefit.[/quote]

Actually that’s why I wouldn’t say campaign scale effect rituals, if the ritual hits the “Damn the cost” point having an item explicitly for reducing that cost isn’t exactly needed.

31

No, I’m not. If you have enough masks to add an extra target, the Masks will always be useful and you will have no wasted casts. This was the best example as opposed to picking an arbitrary extra magnitude to reach, as it would show if the Masks were capable of being generally cost-effective, or only for some specific situation like “Gathering the Harvest, when you are exactly 6 Magnitude away from hitting 3 Targets”. I’m not going to work out all possible situations. A good economic item is one where if you buy it, you’re getting a benefit most of the time, and you can trust that it is worth it. The Phial of the Sun is a good example, it’s a 1/day effect that saves you money provided you use it whenever possible.

I mentioned about the extra 1 rank per person if you’re just short, too. I will admit that masks have appeared “useful” to our coven in that they’ve made the difference between getting 3 Farms in a ritual and getting 4. However, the amount of money we’ve got out of that over a year was not enough to offset the cost of making the mask in the first place. Remember, every time you don’t need to use the Mask because you do have enough people, it is wasted money. And your limiting factor on casts per day can be stuff like “we can’t find 4 targets in the same territory”.

Yes, this. In many cases, after a few events you have got to the point where the mask is obsolete because you got another player, or someone bought a new Rank of Lore or whatever.
The masks are poorly balanced because they look like an excellent deal at first glance but they’re far more likely to be a waste unless you do this sort of advanced optimisation.

On the other hand, staves are excellently balanced because although they’re expensive, they work anywhere you need some extra magnitude, so you’ll get full use out of them if you try. Comparing the Melancholic Staff to a Mercantilist’s mask, it might be 3 times the price, but if you do it right you can probably use it three times as often or rent it out to someone who does.

Honestly, compared to a Straw Mask I would rather try and find someone to rent a Staff off for one ritual at a time when I need it, or get a Ring of Triumph that I can use on the occasional chance I need +1 Lore for farms, but also for any other Summer, Autumn or Day ritual.

Items of +1 Lore don’t reduce the cost, but they do increase the chance they’ll actually happen as you don’t need a huge coven with expensive staves. You can have a small, specialised coven with Masks to do That One Thing.

32

If you have enough masks to hit an extra target, some of the masks will always be useful, given you have enough people to wear all the masks. The mask you use one festival a year is probably better than the set of four masks where you use 4, 3, 3, 2 masks a festival.
The best example to cost something at is the worst possible costing, really? It’s really good at illustrating why masks are terrible, but by that point you moving away from the intended use. You could make a profit out of a single mask in one event.
Also the Phial of the sun making a profit requires you having the possibilities to use it. Honestly based on my pattern of herb use, there’s been no set of 4 events it would have been worth while to me. Although the venom changes might alter that.

Your limiting factor would be “We can’t find 4 targets in the same area,” mine would be 2 or 3, and it’s far less likely to cause a problem. It’s a lot easier to justify for small covens

So the mask which is at best usable at two events of the year (Because assuming the spring side is almost worthless seems relatively safe claim), and maybe only one might not be the best choice?
I’m reasonably confident the 9 economic rituals they picked are almost the 9 worst economic rituals you could pick (That we don’t have a mask of the cauldron is a saving grace.) Okay my bias against Rivers of Gold is probably Dawnish prejudice but still.

[quote=“Jim”]

Yes, this. In many cases, after a few events you have got to the point where the mask is obsolete because you got another player, or someone bought a new Rank of Lore or whatever. [/quote]

You missed the point I was making entirely:
Masks: +1 to 1-3 rituals -cheap
Staves: + 1 to one realm – expensive
Masks: Cover about 15 rituals
Staves: Cover every ritual that can be cast

Masks as a cheap way to fix a problem, in theory aren’t poorly balanced. The problem isn’t that masks only add to 1-3 rituals, the problem is masks only add to SPECIFIC rituals. There is a staff to help with ANY problem, there is a mask to help with 5% of problems, picked out by the designers at the start of the game.
A coven being 1 rank away from being able to cast gather the harvest, occurs far less than a coven being 1 rank away from being able to cast a ritual. Now even with rune forges this won’t be fixed in play, because any individual mask is probably going to have very low interest compared to items of broader appeal.

The way to make masks function as:

Is to make them programmable, the artisan picks the ritual for the mask at the time of creation. It makes them a better choice for artisans, and a way to achieve coven objectives without resorting to recruit a new player or wait a year.

[quote=“Jim”]

Items of +1 Lore don’t reduce the cost, but they do increase the chance they’ll actually happen as you don’t need a huge coven with expensive staves. You can have a small, specialised coven with Masks to do That One Thing.[/quote]

Going from those really expensive staves to cheaper ritual masks, that’s cost reduction (Just not in terms of mana). Also my definition of small coven isn’t one that can cast campaign level effects.

33

I note that if these existed, I would literally order five tomorrow; three of them would be being kept around on spec in case I found another coven that wanted to join mine. Not saying that that item is ludicrous, but ‘cheap, efficient and effective’ translates to ‘everyone wants one, and another one for special occasions’.

34

Which ritual would the masks be for?

From the ritualists* point of view the difference in the proposed method and the present masks is the rituals. That’s the only difference with the 7 masks in existence at the moment, the existing masks in theory are more flexible than any resulting item from this idea. If you read Jim’s two walls of text, there are some really valid difficulties in using masks, he’s over stating it a bit, a mask is fundamentally a gamble. The ring, the staff are flexible worst case scenario you lend them to someone else who needs them. The masks with poor planning/misfortune, 1 or all of them could be completely useless.

I think the concept that Masks are fundamentally vastly overpowered, but the rituals are chosen so poorly it overbalances it to worthless, is hard to defend. Now I think some of the masks managed to choose exceptionally bad rituals. However, a better designed mask wouldn’t be ludicrous. Now there might be rituals/categories of rituals which having a mask for would actually be overpowered, campaign effects seem an obvious candidate. (You probably want a maximum mag of chosen ritual (Rather than achievable mag), I mentioned cap at 30 in the initial suggestion but forgot mention it in the repost.)

Other than that I can’t think of any individual ritual which having a mask for would be ludicrous. Now replacing the masks we have with a set of masks that have better chosen rituals. Has generally been met with not enough, meh, or quibbling over which rituals. If we are happy with any of these useful item that benefits a selection of lucky ritualists, existing. I don’t see what’s the problem with going just effectively filling in the set.

A mask is probably worthwhile only if:
a) You are going to cast that ritual a large number of times
b) You really value that ritual

Now if I’m correct this is partially down to the difference in outlook between organising farming rituals in the marchers and only spring coven in Urizen. I’m really curious to the scenario that keeping 3 masks just in case, is better than getting a 1 staff (Plus the masks for yourselves.) But small, stable organised coven is basically the ideal market for the masks. If you aren’t interested PD have chosen the wrong spring rituals.

*It’s far better for artisans.

35

[quote=“McGonigle”]

Which ritual would the masks be for?[/quote]

Forge the Wooden Fastness. We’re maintaining a set of rings mostly to hit mag 50 for one ritual; with the resources saved from downgrading them to masks, we’d buy a couple of Sanguine Staves and the mana for a couple of gom jabbar rituals and potions, and hit 64 on five people.

If it was limited to 30 then, um. I don’t think we’d buy any. We need our jewelry slot for hitting 50 for strategic rituals.

It’s very hard to think of a Spring mask because there are almost no low-level Spring rituals you can guarantee that you’re going to need to cast.

The reason I’m saying ‘keep some around on spec’ is that I just filled up all of the slots my coven care about out of downgrading five rings of Atun to masks.

What do I think the masks would be useful for?

*Any strategic ritual with broad applicability (fortresses count)
*Sign of Aesh and Crystalline Focus of Aesh, because huffing all the mana should be encouraged (I would love to see those rituals lower in Day or alternatively targetable on someone else, because Day is a great deal stronger than the other magics and one reason is that Day can bootstrap itself)
*Soloable rituals with good scaling - not the economic ones so much: the combat buffs, the healing, the drugs
*The investigative rituals: Lantern, Balanced Blade, Clear Lens and Shadowed Glass

36

A “Mask of the Fortress” then? +1 for casting Forge the Wooden Fastness, Frozen Fortress of Cathan Canae and Dripping Echoes of the Fen.
… not many folks will get much use out of more than one of those, but I would seed these throughout the field if they existed.

37

I agree with the ritual suggestions above, because they are all easy to use. You’re trying to hit a static target number and you don’t have to do a load of calculations for on-field resource price, cost of mana and how many targets and casts you need to make the Mask worth it. You simply ask “Do we want to do the Big Cool Thing?” and if the answer is “HELL YES WE DO!”, you go buy enough masks to make it happen.

Rituals that would benefit from masks:
-Big, Cool Stuff. The Ashen Cowl is a great item as Whispers through the Black Gate doesn’t need to be efficient. It is pure FUN. Similar for Challenge the Iron Duke.
-CURSES, especially the Territory ones. You want to screw someone or something over. Wrath doesn’t need to be cost-effective.
-Battlefield MASS rituals, as it lowers the bar from “a lot of mad bombers” to “A few mad bombers”.
-Short-range investigation rituals.
-The Ward rituals from Winter (Hold Back Frozen Hunger etc.)
-Align the Celestial Net.
-Any magnitude 10 ritual, as then a solo character can go Lore 3 + Imperial Regio + Mask = I can do my signature ritual.
There’s a common factor here of “stuff you might urgently need a small coven to do on a battlefield”. Battlefield covens are always smaller because battle magician is expensive and risky and ritualist is a great noncom choice.

[quote]The best example to cost something at is the worst possible costing, really? It’s really good at illustrating why masks are terrible, but by that point you moving away from the intended use. You could make a profit out of a single mask in one event.
[/quote]

Yes, really. Because what I’m trying to prove here is “masks are not an easy, good choice. They are a trap/gamble and a lot of people fell into the trap”. You could make a profit, but it’s a lot of work and some luck.

People tend to trust that you get what you pay for out of things in a game. Buying enough masks to let you add an extra target is the obvious thing to do if economic items are balanced. People have wanted masks because they trusted that Numbers Go Up is good, and needed persuading out of it. When you’re looking at only 2-3 targets you need to balance the cost of the mask against things like the mana cost of solo 1-target casts, as you only have 2 coven bonds a day anyway. The fact that we’re still debating the exact good scenario to use them in underlines the problem. They might provide more Stuff for some players, but they’re stealing game from plenty of others as they spend resources and a slot that doesn’t give them any mechanical or roleplay benefits. They seem like a good deal as they are super cheap compared to a Staff or Ring, but they usually aren’t.

38

Add to that list
Mag 8 that you can’t cast in the regio - Pakanann’s Iron Shutter’s is the only one that springs to mind
Sound of Drums and similar, that mag 10 is exactly + 1 target
Last breath echo’s (Again cool battlefield things)
Wind of mundane silence

Has anyone been keeping count, how many rituals those criteria puts on the list?

Basically list of things we want masks for
Any really big ritual that is consistently useful (15)
Some really big rituals that questionably useful and really cool (7)
Anything you want to cast to the battlefield (13)
Any useful ritual that’s just on the edge of being solo-able (13)
Things which are really cool. (13)
I’ve probably missed some, and some fit into more than 1 category (and I missed the sound of drums type because that would take a lot longer.) But 62 is a reasonable stab

That’s a lot of Imperial Lore (Particularly winter – where almost half are in this list, not surprising if you think about it.) We probably aren’t having 30 odd masks. You create another set of arbitrary winners and losers among covens, but the winners just win more.

Many of them won’t get used, Captain’s Mask and the Cowl both fall under the suggested criteria, I’ve never seen either used. Now admittedly Cowl if it could drag you up to mag 20, would be great, but the combination of demand for through the black gate, and covens that want to cast it but can’t are quite small, and likely temporary.

Now one solution would be design far broader Masks
Mask of the General
Mask of the Fortress
Mask of the scorned lover (Curses)
Mask of Devastation (Mass)

They would be more expensive but the price increase isn’t really a problem for the larger covens, honestly I reckon tactical rituals of either variety would probably see demand up to being the same price as the rings. I give it 1 event before a decent set of mask of Fortress/General start getting passed from one strategic coven to the next.
However once it hits over 20 any smaller coven would be better off organising a time-share on a ritual stave. Unless we are talking the absolute best scenario ever.

Masks being for non-regio casting, so a mask of +1 to any autumn ritual when not in a regio, would be a more elegant, less prescriptive way of dealing with about a third of the list. It’s makes a strong simple design decision, masks are for battlefield rituals, and supports every single ritual you could conceivably cast on the battlefield - from destroying gate to throwing mid mag curses at individual barbarians
Then escaping the regio as an RP perk is fun. (This has the beneficial side effect of making them useful prestige items for Dramaturgy.)

Alternatively rather than trying to design the masks for the best rituals in the game, to have masks be programmable. Iulian may have dismissed it as ludicrous, but he then proposed the mask for that he’d apparently keep three of on the shelf for a rainy day it’s that good.

If you are starting to think about the large tactical rituals, which are probably among the best to mask. Why not just throw it open? 6 or 12* masks that deal with the entire of Imperial lore. It deals with the entire list, lets the rank 4 mages hit mag 11/12 to escape the masked rank 3 mages :stuck_out_tongue: lets the coven who really want to be able to cast X for RP reasons do it, and means the really impressive stuff that no one is looking at, is mask supported when people start aiming at it (I’m looking at Wind of mundane silence, and Devastating Scythe of Anguish and Loss here.)

  • The 12 is sticking a mag limit on the lower one, because it might help balance.

I’d actually argue the Iron Duke’s a terrible choice, don’t get me wrong, really fun, but it’s not cast that often. You might as well do it on an off day and borrow/rent staffs/rings, use ritual potions the amount you are going to want to cast it.

39

[quote=“Iulian”]

Sign of Aesh and Crystalline Focus of Aesh, because huffing all the mana should be encouraged (I would love to see those rituals lower in Day or alternatively targetable on someone else, because Day is a great deal stronger than the other magics and one reason is that Day can bootstrap itself)[/quote]

OK, I would give my right arm (or at least somebody’s right arm!) to be able to cast Sign of Aesh on someone else. My Hakima group is set up around solo ritualists specialising in different lores - if I could take our summer mage up to the Regio and cast Sign of Aesh on HIM…

I do like the idea of masks for (specific) rituals that you want to cast outside the Regio - given that the number of times I have needed to cast it ON the Regio is precisely 0, currently I need Sign of Aesh + Staff/Ring to solo Clear Lens Of The Eternal River. Night Mages have the same problem with Shadowed Glass (except they don’t have the option of burning mana to drop the magnitude). And given the number of Day/Night covens I know, a mask that does both would sell like proverbial hot cakes…