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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pall Bearer" data-source="post: 868736" data-attributes="member: 11491">And more was asked, so the following is part of an FAQ that exapnds it all a bit further and answers some of the unanswered questions._______________________________________________For instance: Let's say we have a fifteenth level mage who starts his day at full spell cpacity. To make this easier we won't have him running about with any items that ameliorate fatigue costs. Also we make him a mage and not a specialist so that we don't have to worry about the differing spell point costs for casting spells that you specialize in. Now, our mage has a base 465 spell points at his level, and he also happens to get, let's say, a total of 10 more through bonuses from high Fitness, and Reason scores for a total of 475. Too, he has the Arcane Endurance nwp at 17. He heads out and at some point he encounters a trio of trolls who catch him nearly unawares. He has the Wall of Fire spell and since they're almost on him, he snaps it out quickly in a circle around himself so as to keep them off of him for a moment. Now Wall of Fire is just a 4th level spell, so for a mage of his level it is only lightly fatiguing. He rolls against his Arcane Endurance nwp which is a 17-4 for spell level, or a 13. he rolls a 10 and succeeds in reducing the fatigue cost to nothing. The trolls, not being really bright today, decide to wait out the spell to get at the tasty looking guy they see through the flames. Feeling a bit peckish, our mage decides to get nasty and unleashes an Acid Storm on the trio. Now, Acid Storm is a seventh level spell, and heavily fatiguing even for such a high level mage. He rolls to reduce the fatigue (his base 17-7 for the spell level) but rolls an 11 and doesn't manage it this time. He is now heavily fatigued, incurring, according to the book, -2 penalty to all attacks, a +1 penalty to Armor Class and has his movement rate decreased to 1/4 of it's normal (3 in this case). He is exhausted and is suffering a spliting headache and all over body pains. One of the trolls survives the acid storm and incensed, leaps through the wall of fire, also surviving it. It gets the initiative for the round and strikes first in the round. It gets lucky, doing a total of 25 points of damage. Now our mage is a stout guy with a high Fitness to boot, he normally has 48 hit points, but since that 25 points reduces him to less than half of his normal hit point total it increases his fatigue level by one as well. Even before our mage whips out his wand of magic missiles and finishes the staggering troll off, since the acid damage will keep it from regenerating, just like it's two companions, it out of the picture; but even before that, our trusty mage is now suffering from the effects of severe (-4 attack penalty, a +3 AC penalty, a movement rate or 1 and just walking about now requires either a Will or Balance save, whichever is more advantageous) fatigue. Not even wanting to think of the possibility of facing anything else just now, he prays that there is nothing in the immediate area and he casts a Leomunds Secure Shelter (another 4th level spell) right on the spot. Normally this spell is only able to cause light fatigue... but he's almost ready to pass out as it is. Thankfully, even increased by two fatigue levels (which is the penalty for casting a spell when you are already severely fatigued) the Leomunds Secure Shelter is only heavily fatiguing for such a high level mage and it does not thus increase his fatigue level to mortal. Now, on the good side: our mage has used a total of two fourth level spells for 44 points and one seventh level spell for 60 points. The total being 104 points. WHILE he is recovering from his fatigue he is also recovering used hit points. He does NOT need to "restudy" his spells, as any spells he has in memory are available to him. The old "spells per level" limit is used solely to see how many spells he can actively store at one time. The only time he needs to "study" is if he wants to exchange one for another. Recovering from fatigue for our exemplar mage is as follows: Since he is severely fatigued he can roll to recover from his fatigue after one hour of rest. Since our boy has the Meditiation nwp at 15 and a secure place in which to meditate, if he makes his roll then after half the otherwise required time he can roll. Let's say he made it. After half an hour he rolls a save vs. Death Magic modified by his high Fitness of 16 (a +2 bonus) and by an additonal +1 for being in a meditative state. A 15th level Mage normally needs an 11 to save, our boy needs an 8. Let's say he's unlucky and he rolls a 4. Well, no harm done, he's still secure, and because of the meditative state, a simple half an hour later he rolls again. This time he has an additonal +1 bonus from the extra time spent so he needs only a 7. He rolls a 9 and makes it. His fatigue level drops then to heavy. Heavy fatigue has a recovery of once per turn normally, but still in his meditative half trance, our mage needs only 5 minutes between rolls. On the first one, still needing the normal 8 he needed the first time he rolls a 19. In our game this is a special success (as it is more than 10 more than the number needed to succeed) and he recovers not one, but two levels of fatigue, bringing him all the way back to light fatigue. One round and one further succesful roll later he is completely recovered from his fatigue. During this time he has also recovered a number of the 104 spell points he spent. Since he was meditating during this time he is treated as though he had been sleeping and he recovers 1/10th of his normal spell point maximum per hour. Now since he has a normal maximum of 475 spell points, he just recovered 48 in the one hour and six minutes that he meditated. Thus he is only 56 points short of his maximum spell casting total. Our mage decides to venture on. He leaves the shelter and continues walking deeper into the edges of the fens. He will continue to recover his spell points, even walking, since this is not strenous exercise at the rate of 2% per hour, or 10 (actually 9.5, but we round up) points per hour in his case. In less than six hours he will, if he encounters no further troubles, be back to his full spell point potential. If he DOES encounter trouble though, it will be a real pain in the ass for him as since he is at less than 1/2 of his normal hit points, all his spells are increased by one category in fatigue cost. So, 1st through 3rd level spells that normally have no fatigue cost will have a fatigue cost one light. If he tries to cast a seventh level spell with a normally heavy fatigue he will find himself faced with the possibility of severe fatigue again. He needs to be FAR more careful until he's regained atleast a few hit points and is thus no longer handicapped by his hit point state. Well, this long example has given you an idea of how all this works in practice. There, as I mentioned, are very few things that are new about this system we use (we've been using most of these modified rules since early 97) and we've adapted to it to the point that it takes little more book keeping than the old system. Truly, it is no harder than the original system to use once you've learned it and it takes no longer to learn this from scratch than the original from scratch. PLUS, to my mind at least, this is both more flexible and less contrived in feel as well. PB</blockquote>

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