[MaxWilson]

Ironhawk,

The fatigue of the spell is split amongst master/slaves *before* skill in magic paths is factored in. A 200 fatigue S3 spell distributed amongst a S4 master and three S1 slaves will be 50 fatigue to each of them, adjusted for Astral paths at each mage *individually.*

50 fatigue to the master, but he's got +1 from 3 slaves and it's an S3 spell, so he takes 1/3 of that = 17 fatigue.

50 fatigue to each of the slaves, but they're S1 with a +1 bonus from being in a 3-slave communion so effectively S2. This is one shy of the S3 requirement, so the 50 fatigue allotment is doubled for each of them. Each one takes 100 fatigue.

I'm not entirely sure where encumbrance fits in, whether it's just the master's encumbrance that gets divided up or whether slaves take encumbrance from each spell that a master casts. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter and maybe later I'll check it out.

So you see, the skill of the communion slaves can matter quite a bit.

-Max