Post by David Price on May 2, 2008 17:43:44 GMT -8
The following are House Rules or clarifications of the book that the STs have decided to run with.
Prime magic and quintessence drawing-
Prime 1 is necessary to store quintessence past your avatar. Prime 3 is able to move quintessence from place to place. House rule: If you have Prime 2, you can draw quintessence past your avatar. With Prime 3, you can charge people that have Prime 1 past their avatar.
Wards and Bans-
Since this one's a little complex and a large change from how we've been running things, the text for wards and bans in the book-
The way I interpret this text, this means that using Corr 2 to ward something only wards against sensory Corr magic. Adding additional spheres to Corr 2 does not make a ward against that sphere, but instead provides a method of controlling what has access to bypass the ward. If somebody wants to make a ward against something that isn't Corr, odds are that it'll require that sphere at 2 (although mind ward is at 1). These will be separate effects- you can't lump Corr 2 Forces 2 to make a Corr/Forces ward and have the successes count twice. You can lump them together in a single effect if you split your successes among the two spheres to have your duration successes count twice, but then you'll be more vulnerable to it being counterspelled.
On the other hand, the way I read Ban (Corr 3), adding additional spheres _does_ ban that sort of thing from the area. So Corr 3 Forces 1 could be used to prevent electricity from working in an area. The way I read the text, you can declare a "type" of that effect to cover, so you can ban "teleportation" from an area without covering scrying, but I don't see that you can use additional spheres to control who can bypass that effect. So saying "no teleportation" is an all or nothing sort of thing.
Forces Ward (Forces 2) deserves a special mention here- Forces 2 can be used to create forces armor (See "Energy Shield"), but it specifically says in the book that when created this effect has to specify a type of force to ward against- at forces 2 you can only pick one type per effect. "Kinetic" as a choice covers bullets and swords and whatnot, but if you want it to cover electricity or fire you'd have to specify that.
Entropy magic-
Entropy effects have been used fairly vaguely and powerfully in game recently, and I wanted to make some clarifications.
The Entropy 2 effect of "Beginner's Luck" can only be used on actions you have 2 dice or fewer for (although see Proposed House Rules for this). Games of Luck (also Entropy 2) only effects things that are purely chance. These sorts of Rotes imply to me that Entropy 2 is meant to effect purely luck-based situations, not anything that have skill involved.
Entropy 4 can bless/curse people, and Entropy 5 can "Mutate Ephemera", but I read these both as "with specified blessings/curses, etc".
Vague "I want to be lucky" effects we can't really justify working without more detailed descriptions. Things like "I want the tools I need to be convenient" are reasonable, but "I want to live through this scene" or "I have a good luck charm" are really too vague to be able to run from a storyteller standpoint. I would like to see Entropy effects be more descriptive- targetting specific items to break down (Entropy 3), having cards for successes on Beginner's Luck (Entropy 2), etc. Entropy scanning for fate can catch Destiny dots or merits/flaws that describe things that will definately happen or decay that already exists, but Time is best to see things that will happen.
Mostly we're trying to avoid Entropy being a catch-all that covers everything. I'll try to come up with some more specific examples and powers soon.
Prime magic and quintessence drawing-
Prime 1 is necessary to store quintessence past your avatar. Prime 3 is able to move quintessence from place to place. House rule: If you have Prime 2, you can draw quintessence past your avatar. With Prime 3, you can charge people that have Prime 1 past their avatar.
Wards and Bans-
Since this one's a little complex and a large change from how we've been running things, the text for wards and bans in the book-
Just as a mage can sense distant locations, the mage can also defend against such perceptions. A ward prevents sensory intrusion from most varieties of supernatural perception. The mage simply creates a bar against the connections of space that would form with Correspondence Sensing. Such an Effect pits its successes against the successes of any scrying attempt, so a well-built ward can keep out even determined spies while a hasty one just makes scrying a little blurry. The ward's successes subtract from any scrying attempt's successes, but the spy's work of battering down the ward is noticeable unless the spy is also careful enough to rebuild the ward while worming through it.
With the proper conjunctional Spheres, a ward can be set with specific conditions or blockades. A ward with the right Mind magic might let through certain viewers or certain people in a particular state of mind, or who know the right password. Time magic can key a ward so that it's penetrable to viewers in a specific range of time. Matter or Life magic allows wards to be woven directly over such Patterns, and it makes scrying on the objects themselves difficult.
Once the mage can actually pierce or strength space (Correspondence 3), a ward can be built as a ban, an actual barrier to passage. The ban might appear as a force field or a set of glowing runes, or it might have no visible manifestation. The Spheres used in the creation of the ban determine what it keeps out. A Matter ban could be keyed to resist intrusion by bullets, iron, or radioactive material; a Forces ban might block certain energies; a Life ban can keep out specific creatures or types of creatures; a Spirit ban naturally protects against demons and spirit entities. The ban strengthens space against the creature, combined with the power of the appropriate Pattern Sphere, to hedge it out, though anything not keyed to the ban passes through normally. Thus, a ban against spirits would still let a spirit's spells and thrown weapons through, so be careful! Bans must usually be cast over an area, and unless the mage spends a lot of time adding to the duration and conjunctional Effects, they aren't likely to last for too long.
With the proper conjunctional Spheres, a ward can be set with specific conditions or blockades. A ward with the right Mind magic might let through certain viewers or certain people in a particular state of mind, or who know the right password. Time magic can key a ward so that it's penetrable to viewers in a specific range of time. Matter or Life magic allows wards to be woven directly over such Patterns, and it makes scrying on the objects themselves difficult.
Once the mage can actually pierce or strength space (Correspondence 3), a ward can be built as a ban, an actual barrier to passage. The ban might appear as a force field or a set of glowing runes, or it might have no visible manifestation. The Spheres used in the creation of the ban determine what it keeps out. A Matter ban could be keyed to resist intrusion by bullets, iron, or radioactive material; a Forces ban might block certain energies; a Life ban can keep out specific creatures or types of creatures; a Spirit ban naturally protects against demons and spirit entities. The ban strengthens space against the creature, combined with the power of the appropriate Pattern Sphere, to hedge it out, though anything not keyed to the ban passes through normally. Thus, a ban against spirits would still let a spirit's spells and thrown weapons through, so be careful! Bans must usually be cast over an area, and unless the mage spends a lot of time adding to the duration and conjunctional Effects, they aren't likely to last for too long.
The way I interpret this text, this means that using Corr 2 to ward something only wards against sensory Corr magic. Adding additional spheres to Corr 2 does not make a ward against that sphere, but instead provides a method of controlling what has access to bypass the ward. If somebody wants to make a ward against something that isn't Corr, odds are that it'll require that sphere at 2 (although mind ward is at 1). These will be separate effects- you can't lump Corr 2 Forces 2 to make a Corr/Forces ward and have the successes count twice. You can lump them together in a single effect if you split your successes among the two spheres to have your duration successes count twice, but then you'll be more vulnerable to it being counterspelled.
On the other hand, the way I read Ban (Corr 3), adding additional spheres _does_ ban that sort of thing from the area. So Corr 3 Forces 1 could be used to prevent electricity from working in an area. The way I read the text, you can declare a "type" of that effect to cover, so you can ban "teleportation" from an area without covering scrying, but I don't see that you can use additional spheres to control who can bypass that effect. So saying "no teleportation" is an all or nothing sort of thing.
Forces Ward (Forces 2) deserves a special mention here- Forces 2 can be used to create forces armor (See "Energy Shield"), but it specifically says in the book that when created this effect has to specify a type of force to ward against- at forces 2 you can only pick one type per effect. "Kinetic" as a choice covers bullets and swords and whatnot, but if you want it to cover electricity or fire you'd have to specify that.
Entropy magic-
Entropy effects have been used fairly vaguely and powerfully in game recently, and I wanted to make some clarifications.
The Entropy 2 effect of "Beginner's Luck" can only be used on actions you have 2 dice or fewer for (although see Proposed House Rules for this). Games of Luck (also Entropy 2) only effects things that are purely chance. These sorts of Rotes imply to me that Entropy 2 is meant to effect purely luck-based situations, not anything that have skill involved.
Entropy 4 can bless/curse people, and Entropy 5 can "Mutate Ephemera", but I read these both as "with specified blessings/curses, etc".
Vague "I want to be lucky" effects we can't really justify working without more detailed descriptions. Things like "I want the tools I need to be convenient" are reasonable, but "I want to live through this scene" or "I have a good luck charm" are really too vague to be able to run from a storyteller standpoint. I would like to see Entropy effects be more descriptive- targetting specific items to break down (Entropy 3), having cards for successes on Beginner's Luck (Entropy 2), etc. Entropy scanning for fate can catch Destiny dots or merits/flaws that describe things that will definately happen or decay that already exists, but Time is best to see things that will happen.
Mostly we're trying to avoid Entropy being a catch-all that covers everything. I'll try to come up with some more specific examples and powers soon.