MAGE info and clarifications:

• Section 1: Paradox
• Section 2: Vulgar Magick
• Section 3: Awareness
• Section 4: Inflicting Agg
• Section 5: Paradigm
• Section 6: Arcane
• Section 7: Quintessence
• Section 8: Modifying the Diff. for magick
• Section 9: Aura's
• Section 10: Extended rolls and Rituals
• Section 11: Inter system Rules
• Section 12: Sphere Learning Times
• Section 13: SLC Site rulings on diffrent effects
  • Mind Sheild
  • Damage for Fire Effects
  • Aura Sight
  • Sleep
  • Friction Curse
  
  
  
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Section 1: Paradox

Paradox is the bane of magi existence and should never be taken lightly. Each point of paradox bleeds off naturally at the rate of 1 point per week, provided you perform no magic during that week. if on the 7th day you cast even minor spell the week starts over. With the mage story teller's or assistant story teller's approval you may take Paradox flaws to cause the paradox to bleed off faster. However the ST or AST decides on the flaw and its duration. You can suggest something but they do not have to listen or use your suggestions. An example of a flaw that would bleed off 1 point of paradox that you received from a forces effect is as follows.

Joe a Son of Ether wants to bleed off the point of paradox he acquired after he botched a forces 1 effect. He asks Jeremy to give him a flaw to bleed it off. Joe suggests that Electricity appears to play across his eyes for an hour. Jeremy asks how Joe acquired the paradox and discovers that Joe botched an attempt to measure the current in a electrical line. Jeremy then tells Joe what the flaw will be, in this case for the next 2 hours Joe has a constant static charge, not enough to do damage to anyone, but enough so that anyone touching him, even through gloves will notice, furthermore for those 2 hours any time Joe touches something sensitive to electricity, computer disks, microchips, etc. ((provided these things belong to Joe or his friends)) Joe is to roll his arete + paradox pool diff 8 for comp disks diff 9 for hardware and any time he scores a success it ruins the item. ((Note: That botches do not mean anything on these rolls))

Yes this can cause massive problems but paradox is suppose to do that.

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Section 2: Vulgar Magick

A vulgar effect is any effect that sleeper society would not accept as something that could just coincidentally occur. It is also dependent on what the mage thinks sleeper would accept. So while a VA might have equipment to teleport an object If he is any where other then his sanctum this effect is vulgar. Even if sleepers do not see it. Provided the VA knows that he is teleporting an object. there are ways around this problem and teleport things out side your sanctum without receiving Paradox , but it is left to the imagination of the player to discover them.

Also even if you are in your sanctum, If your spell effects things out side of the sanctum it is still vulgar.

An example is a VA named John is sitting at his computer decides to co-locate him self to the radio shack in the mall, the computer store down the street and a third persona to stay in the sanctum. Despite the fact the "real" John is in his sanctum the effect is vulgar. Another example if John was keeping an eye on a friend via satellite surveillance (( coincidental corr. effect)) his friend is suddenly jumped by 3 garu, So John decides to teleport him to a safe place. Again this is a vulgar effect.

Please also note that Magi should use vulgar magic only as a last resort. IE never start a fight with a fire ball even if you have the spheres to do it.

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Section 3: Awareness

Awareness does not automatically allow you to sense magic. Also the diff for an awareness roll varies depending on the effect the diff is always dependent on the situation but here is a general guideline I try to follow:

level one sphere effect used on the caster diff 9
Level one sphere effect used on someone other then the caster diff 8
level two sphere effect (or combo of 2 level 1's) used on caster diff 8
level two sphere effect (or combo of 2 level 1's) used on someone else diff 7

and so on
if you are the someone the effect is being used on subtract another 1
vulgar magic subtracts 5 from the diff
If the diff drops to 1 every mage will notice it. Even if they have an awarness of 0.
If it drops below 0 Every living thing in the area will notce even if they are not a mage.

Also note that while minor effects may dissipate in a few minutes larger effects could take hours or even days to dissipate so that they can not be detected. The tell tale signs of all Vulgar effects last for at least 1 day as well as the signs of magical botches.

So it is important to remember that if you are a tradition mage and you go vulgar in a public place there is a decent chance of the Union finding out and starting to look for you.

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Section 4: Inflicting Agg

Here are the ways a mage can cause agg.


• Method 1 : The prime 2 effect enchant weapon
  
  This requires 5 success diff 7, further more only success after the mandatory 5, count for duration of the spell. A botch at any point ruins the spell and you must start over with the +1 to diff that failing in an effect imposes. This effect can be placed on anything from fists to gloves to swords. However this causes the item and whoever is wielding it to stand out like a beacon in the night for wraiths, or any one with prime sight active.
  
  Also Please note that while the this effect is coincidental the high diff reflects the amount of concentration and the difficulty to re-weave the basic pattern of an object.
  
  
  
• Method 2: vulgar life magic and only vulgar life magic
  IE rip the man body (mage second ed. page 171)
  
  
  
• Method 3: Vulgar Prime attacks, or attacks Charged with Prime
  
  ((see method 1)) This does not include attacks mearly created with Prime. (mage second ed. page 171)
  Other than via methode 1 the only other way to charge an attack with Prime is to Charge a Magical effect while you are casting it. The only way to do this requires Prime 3 and requires the Mage to spend 1 quint to Chrage the effect. quint spent this way does Not lower the diff.
  
  
  
• Method 4: Direct vulgar entropy attacks
  
  (mage second ed. page 171)
  
  
  
• Method 5: Spirit magicks that summon spirits to attack a living body
  
  IE free the mad howlers (mage second ed. page 171)
  
  
  
• Method 6: Mundane Items
  
  Items that would normally cause agg to a specific supernatural creature fire for vamps, silver for garu etc. (mage second ed. page 171)
  
  
  NOTE: For any other attack that you wish to do agg you must first clear with a story teller.
  
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Section 5: Paradigm

A magi Paradigm is the most important factor in mage it is what defines a mage and there magic. A SoE may look at the world as an interaction of electrical forces, (this does not mean that they do not need the matter sphere to effect matter it simply means that all of there effects will probably require some form of energy in order to cast). A Verbana or hollow one may look upon te magick as deriving from old and forgotten god ad it is there prayers to tat god that calls forth the power.

This is not something that a ST can regulate in an online setting but it is essential that you develop a Paradigm for your char in order to be considered good mage player.

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Section 6: Arcane

" Although the Arcane back ground doesn't make mages invisible, it does make them less noteworthy. An Arcane seems nondescript and not particularly noticeable. Features just seem to slip away from memory, and the mage just never seems to be caught on film. Records disappear, people forget the mages name or even assume that the discussion s are about someone different, and witnesses can not garner more then "That guy, Girl. whatever." The mage doesn't trigger these effects actively they just happen. The mage can, however, consciously dampen the effect and allow others to see her as she truly is.

You add your characters Arcane score to any Stealth rolls you make, and your opponents reduce their perception or investigation dice pools by a number equal to your score in Arcane. Note that Arcane only helps when the mage is being inconspicuous or absent; if a character is screaming waving around a sword or otherwise drawing attention to herself, Arcane doesn't help. Of course, people might give conflicting descriptions later or be hard pressed to remember her name. When your character is directly involved in combat, this trait gives her no benefits.

Note also that a character with specific, extremely unusual traits -- Like purple hair, a peg leg or huge size -- will not be able to conceal those traits; they stand out to much in peoples' minds. Still, "that one-armed guy with ....uh ... hair of some color" is a start."


Page 118; Mage: The Ascension Revised.



Important things to note:

• "the Arcane back ground doesn't make mages invisible"
• "Arcane only helps when the mage is being inconspicuous or absent"
• While arcane does keep you out of random photos and security camera shots. situations can be set up that defeat this. example letting people through a door 1 at a time so every one is captured n film. of course your arcane does make it likely that a copy of the film will get lost at the developers misplaced after being printed.
• If you do something that would make you very memorable to some one.
  
  
  Example Saying
  
  I am going to kill you
  I am a cammaria agent to a sabbat member
  etc.
  
  
  These types of scenes will scene will stick in the persons mind the more memorable the more likely your arcane will not effect the memory
  
  
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Section 7: Quintessence

Quintessence is very valuable to a mage and is not to be used lightly. To begin with unless you have Prime and access to a node you can never store more quint then your avatar rating. Further more, even though with Prime one you have the ability to store more then your avatar rating in quint, you canot absorb any quint that would raise you above that rating through meditation at a node. In fact almost the only way your quintessence pool can go above your Avatar rating is if some one with high prime gives you quintessence, and you would still have to have Prime 1.

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Section 8: Modifying the Diff. for magick

The base difficulties are as follows:
• Coincidental: Highest Sphere +3
• Vulgar without Witnesses: Highest Sphere +4
• Vulgar with Witnesses: Highest Sphere +5


Maximum situational Modifier: +/-. Minimum Difficulty of 3, Maximum 9. for Each point that the diff would be raised above 9 you add 1 to the threashhold. For each point of Threshold you subtract 1 success from the roll befor determining Botch.

You can spend quint to lower the diff on a magical effect you cannot spend more quint per turn then you have points in your avatar rating. So if you have an avatar of 2 you can only spend 2 points of quint, and if you have an avatar of 5 you can spend up to 5 points of quint a round. But any Reduction in difficulty in this manner does count against the maximum difficulty Reduction. You can find a list of things that modifiy the diff in the book.

Outside magical effects such as anti-magic do not count against this modifier maximum, for example there another mage casts anti magic she rolls 4 success and spends the necessary 4 quint, This Raises the Base diff by 4 so that it does not count against the maximum of +/- 3 modification limit.

EXAMPLES:

The Situation: Jon casts a vulgar effect using Prime 2 and forces 4, but lucckly there are no sleepers around, only other supernatural creatures. So this translates into a Base diff of 8. ((Highest shpere+4)) However, this is not the final difficulty do to other complications. Jon is Fast casting the effect so there is an additional +1 to the diff. Also Jon is being shot at, a deffinet distraction so +2. There are other things that would increase the difficulty further but since the total modifieres in either direction can not exced 3 we stop counting. This leaves us with a difficulty of 11. Which translates into a base diff of 9 and a 2 threshold. Jon has a 4 arete and as such will be rolling 4 dice.

The rolls:
• Jon spends a willpower and rolls 8,9,6,1= so that is 2 success 1 for the 9 and 1 for the willpower. We now subtract the threshold leaving us with 0 success. at this point we check for a botch. Since Jon has no success but does have a 1 the roll is botched.
  
  
• Jon spends a willpower and rolls 9,0,1,1= With this roll Jon scorred 3 success. after subtracting the threshold he still has a single success. So we move on to determin if it was a botch. In this case though Jon has two 1's he does have a single success. So though the 1's subtract from success leaving him with No success it is not a botch, because he had at least 1 success befor subtracting success because of the 1's.
  
  
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Section 9: Aura's

First off as of the new addition of mage, (also the mage revised download that has been available for months) you can not see auras with Awareness no matter how many success you role. Next, a Magi's aura will appear to be crackaling with suppressed power. If the the magi is casting an effect or is maintaining an active effect.there is additional evidence.

Please note that all colors below are in regards to unshielded auras, a mage with mind one can hide the aura completely and mind 2 can make it appear however the mage wishes, provided they make a successful magic roll.

Aura Colors

Passion's	Color		State/Essence	Color
Joy/Innocence	White		Calm	Light Blue
Love	Deep Blue		Depressed	Grey
Empathy/Sympathy	Pink----Rose		Excited	Violet
Lust/Ambition	Dark Red----Purple		Spiritual	Gold
Grief	Silver----Grey		Confused	(Mottled,shifting colors)
Fear	Orange		Frenzied	(Rapid rippling colors)
Jealousy/Envy	Green		Using magic	(Myriad sparkles)
Hatred	Black		Psychotic/Marauder	(Hypnotic, swirling colors)
Rage	Red		Nephandus	(Black ripples)
			Vampire	(Pale color)
			Werewolf	(Intense colors)
			Mage Resonance	(crackle with supresed power)
			Fae	(rainbow hues)
			Wraith	(flicker fitfully like a dying flame)



All this is as per the CoE tradition book page 63

Please note that Ghoul is not listed. Though you can discover if some one is a ghoul via aura read it requires extra success. ((look to the ruling on seeing auras under "site rulings for different effects"))

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Section 10: Extended rolls and Rituals

Rituals and extended rolls are a way for a mage to amass more success then they normally can with a single arete roll. However, there are limits to this. A mage can make 1 roll per hour for a ritual or extended roll. Also, the mage can only make 1 roll for each level of arete.

For example, Moon Dancer, a Verbena magi, wants to cure her friend of a the sickness that is afflicting her. Do to the fact that Moon Dancer is treating her friend with herbal medicine this is a coincidental effect. So it is diff. 6, also the ST has decided that it will require 2 success to completely cure the person. However Moon Dancer only has an arete of 3 and does not think she can gain the needed success on 1 roll. So she decides to try for an extended roll. She rolls her arete 3 times. And gains a total of 4 successes. Her friend is healed, which is a good thing because do to the fact she only has an arete of 3 she could not have made a forth roll. Also, since each roll takes an hour of game time this stunt took 3 hours.

Also please remember that extended rolls up the danger of paradox. Look in the main book 150-151 ((mage revised)) for a more in depth explanation of extended rolls.

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Section 11: Inter system Rulings

Vampires:

• Sensing. aka Peircing Obfuscate or Chimestry similer disciplines
  • The mage automatically peirces it without a roll: The Mage must have to have higher sphere level in mind, then the level of the discipline in question.
  • Conteseted roll: If their ratings are equal ((The roll is your rank in mind against Their rank in the discipline))
  • No Roll, The mage automatically fails: Mage Mind Sphere Is less then Vampires Discipline rating.
    
  
  
  
• Conterspelling a Discipline:
  To use Countermagick against Thaum...roll arete diff the vamp Thaum lvl +2. (max 10)
  To counter other arete roll diff level of the power + 3 (max 10)
  
  Remember while any sphere can be used to counter Thaum. the mage must have an appropriate sphere to counter the other Disciplines. Such as mind to counter dominate or Presence
  
  
  
• Healing a Vampire:
  Vampires are uneffected by life, but a mage can "heal" a vamp using a matter 3, prime 2 effect.
  
  
  Vamps Counter spelling Mage effects:
  A vampire with Thaum. can roll their thaum rating with a difficulty of the mages WP rating, and for every two success cancel one of the mages.
  
  
  NOTE: Mind shield still helps to defend against all mind effecting disciplines but only if you put up the sheild befor you encounter the vareus mind effecting disciplens.
  
  
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Section 13: Sphere Learning times

Learning Times for spheres:

The base learning times for spheres

@ 1 month ((30 days))
@@ 3 months ((90 days))
@@@ 1 year
@@@@ 5 years
@@@@@ 10 years

Modifiers
Library Background
Roll Library rating diff = (desired sphere rating+3)
Divide base time by success

Examples
3 success for 2 prime = 90days/3=20 days
1 success on 2 prime = 90days/1 = 90days

Fail and botch you do not want to know


Mentor Background
Roll Mentor rating diff = (desired sphere rating+3)
Each success half the time needed

1 success on 2 prime = 90days/(2^1) = 45 days
2 success on 2 prime = 90 days/(2^2)= 23 days
3 success on prime 2 = 90 days/ (2^3)= 12 days

but a mentor may or may not teach you for free, and a fail or botch may mean you anger him/her.



Library +mentor

Roll both separately and take the best result.
Assuming both rolls are success full add +1 success to the roll used


All this can be found on page 73 of "the bitter road"


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Section 14: SLC Site rullings on diffrent effects

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• Mind Sheild
  • Mind shield VS Mind sphere:
    
    
    Rules are the same as those found in the book
    
    
    
  • Mind Shield adds to the innate protection granted by the mind sphere
    
    
    • Base Rules: sphere without mindshield
      
      
      Compare mages mind sphere rating with other supernatural power level.
      If the sphere level is higher then the creatures power level the mage is immune.
      If the Creatures power level is greater then the power is used as normal.
      
      If they are the same each player rolls their level ((should be the same number of dice)) diff 6 treat whoever has more success as the one with the higher power for that use of the power.
      
      
      Example 1:
      Mage with mind 4
      Vampire with obfuscate 3
      
      Mage is immune to the vampires obfuscate.
      
      Example 2:
      Mage with mind 3
      Vampire with obfuscate 4
      
      The vampires obfuscate works.
      
      Example 3:
      Mage with mind 4
      Vampire with obfuscate 4
      
      Each roll 4 dice diff 6 to see if who is ruled as having the greater level for the action.
      
      
    • With Mind Shield in place: ((power with a roll such as dominate))
      
      
      Use the basic rules to see if the power works, then add the mind shield strength to the diff of the power roll. Apply Threshhold rules if necessary.
      
      
    • With Mind Shield in place: ((power with no rooll such as obfuscate))
      
      
      You add the mages mind shield strength to the mages Sphere rating for the comparison. However, when tied the mage only rolls their sphere rating not sphere + shield.
      
      Example 1:
      Mage with mind 2
      Mind Shield with a strength of 2
      Vampire with obfuscate 3
      
      Mage has 4 Vampire 3; Mage is immune to the vampires obfuscate.
      
      Example 2:
      Mage with mind 2
      Mind Shield with a strength of 2
      Vampire with obfuscate 5
      
      Mage has 4 Vampire 5; The vampires obfuscate works.
      
      Example 3:
      Mage with mind 2
      Mind Shield with a strength of 3
      Vampire with obfuscate 5
      
      Mage has 5 Vampire 5; The Mage rolls 3 dice the vampire rolls 5 dice diff 6 to see if who is ruled as having the greater level for the action.
      
      
      
      
      NOTE:
      As with all effects you must either split success between duration and strength or the character must constantly maintain the effect which makes it more difficult to cast additional effects do to distraction.
      
      
      
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• Damage for Fire Effects
  
  
  When a mage uses forces to create a coincidental fire, that the damage it does goes by the injury chart on page 265 in the main mage book, not by the forces Damage chart.
  
  Each success on the magic roll could raise the fire one category or its size by one.
  
  These categories determine the diff of the victims stamina roll in order to withstand the heat and take no damage (i.e. there soak roll)
  
  The size of the fire will determine the wounds the victim takes each round, not the forces damage chart.
  
  Also this only applies to coincidental fire effects, if the mage goes vulgar normal forces damage applies.
  
  

  Categories	Soak roll diff.		wounds(per round)	Size of fire
  heat of candle	3		1	Torch, part of body burned
  heat of torch	5		2	Bonfire, half of body burned
  heat of Bunsen burner	7		3	Raging inferno, entire body
  heat of chem fire	9
  molten metal	10


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• Aura Sight
  
  
  Aura sight requires mind 1 and can be activated and used like any other sphere 1 sight. The exception is that it requires 2 success to cast. Also because of the difficulty in spotting a ghoul, in order for your to be powerful enough to detect the slight difference you must roll 2 additional success bringing the total to 4.
  
  In other ways aura sight is just like any other sphere 1 spell.
  
  However, if the mage has shielded his/her aura each success on there shielding roll raises the diff to see there aura by one. This is for magical attempts only. In other words you can try to out do your opponents magic. But if they are discussing there aura via mind 2 you must have at least mind 2 before you can try to see through it, and have reason to suspect the aura you are seeing is not their natural one.
  
  Also please not the effect to hid an aura is not the same as mind shield. one keeps others from sensing your thoughts and emotions, the other (mind Shield) keeps people from influencing your mind.
  
  Also it is important to note that only mages or people under the effect of a mage spell can attempt to see through the shield a mage uses to cover there aura.
  
  Also it is important to remember that even though a mage can cover or disguise their aura nothing can hid the prime signature that can be seen with Prime one.
  
  
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• Sleep
  
  
  Forcing some one to goto sleep can be done a number of ways.
  
  Method 1.
  
  Life 3: The Caster Splits the success rolled between duration and effect. Durration is based on the duration chart. For each Success placed towereds effect the traget suffers a +1 diff to all physical actions. Furthermore, if the total number of success placed towered effect are greater then the target's Stamina they fall asleep for the duration of the effect.
  
  
  
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• Friction Curse
  Forces 3 or Forces 3, Prime 2
  The general description can be found on page 166 of mage revised.
  
  The success scored on the arete roll must be split in the folowing manner: targets, Effect, and durration.
  
  Targets: unless touching the target or using som other methosde to make contact you must spend 1 success for each person you wish effected.
  
  Success: each success spent here is used to calculate the dmage done to the target for each physical action they take for the duration of the effect. USing the Forces damage chart
  
  Duration: Success spent here are used to determin the length of time the effect is in place.
  
  
  • Forces 3
    The damage inflicted with form of the effect is Bashing. Unless the mage spends 1 quint to charge the effect at the time of casting in which case it is lethal damage.
    example
    4 success; no quint spent
    1 to target
    3 to effect
    1 to durration
    so the target would take 7 bashing for each physical action they take this round and next round.
    
  
  
  • Forces 3; Prime 2
    The damage inflicted with form of the effect is still Bashing. however the mage may spend quint to charge the effect at the time of casting so that some or all the damage is agg
    example
    4 success; no quint spent
    1 to target
    3 to effect
    1 to durration
    so the target would take 7 bashing for each physical action they take this round and next round.
    Now If the mage spent
    1 Quint the damage would be 2 agg and 5 bashing
    2 Quint the damage would be 4 agg and 3 bashing
    3 Quint the damage would be 7 agg
    Remember you can only spend as many quint on an action as you have avatar.
  
  
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• more rulings to come

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If you have something you think should be added please e-mail it to

Lazarus@mail.relicmail.darkrelic.net
I do not promise I will include your idea, but I will think about it and maybe run it by the Admin.