Spell Syncing

Bolidebabes — Two of the Bolide Babes teaching a third

Spell Syncing (aka Group Spellcasting) is an ability of Sorcerers to group cast certain high level spells for rapid spellcasting.

Overview[]

Spell Syncing occurs when two or more Sorcerers in a party have the same syncable spell equipped.

For syncing to be available, the spellcasters should have the same spells equipped, though not necessarily of the same tier; e.g. Bolide and Grand Bolide can be synced.
When spell sync is possible, a faint circular ring will appear around the caster, with the color indicating the Elemental attribute of the spell they are casting.
If any other sorcerer then attempts to cast the same spell, their spell casting will have their spell invocation accelerated as if they had been casting as the same length of time of the initiator.
- This added spell-casting time may be increased by augments such as Articulacy.

Suitable Spells[]

Sorcerer spells have the ability to be cast in unison. This bonus is limited to:

'Spell Barrages'[]

Meteor_mayhem — Meteor mayhem

It is possible to cast Bolide several times whilst a pawn intones a higher tier spell

Once casting of any tier of synced spell have been completed this tier of spell may be immediately casted, without delay, which allows launching in rapid succession spells that normally take very long to cast.

In terms of using spell synching to cast a lower tier spell multiple times whilst an ally intones a higher tier spell - the ability is restrained mostly the post cast spell-holding as well as stamina cost.

This is most practicable casting Bolide whilst a pawn casts Grand Bolide.
Gicel (5 second holding) and Seism (7 second holding) can also be fairly effectively multi-cast.
Maelstrom has such a long post-cast holding (11 seconds) to render this technique of little benefit.
Fulmination gains no benefit from being cast repeatedly as its initiation has no special effects.

Pawn use[]

Pawns will generally spell sync if they can, regardless of inclination, provided :

They have the correct spell type (of any tier).
The other caster is charging but has not fully charged a suitable spell.
They are not currently doing something else.
They are not under attack.

Occasionally pawns will cease casting a spell they had previously synched and join another in casting a spell at lower incantation progress - this may be due to them following the lead of the pawn with better Bestiary knowledge.

Pawn Chatter[]

"I'll combine my magick with yours!"

"I'll mirror your spell"

Notes[]

Spell syncing is effective at mitigating spell interruption. If a pawn or Arisen is interrupted when casting a spell, they can resume the spell without any delay in progress, long as one of the party retained a hold on that spell.
A fully charged spell ceases to be usable for spell syncing.
When a spell has been synched by an ally, the original caster may not rejoin the sync casting a second time, even if another ally is still intoning a higher tier spell.
The gained casting time for party members synching to an ally benefits from augments such as Articulacy - thus a pawn with Articulacy, joining another without may be able to cast the spell immediately if it the initiator had already charged to spell to 90% full or so.
- It is thought the spell synching adds the time of the spell already intoned, not the fractional progress.
- It seems that pawn's without Articulacy that join another with it in Spell Synch do not gain the benefits of their ally's augment, and so will have their casting progress filled to slightly less than the augmented pawn.
Mage spells do not sync.