Cross Casting

Attempts at a draft on how casting rules might work.

Currently, this is how casting is described in the main book.

Step1: Declare intention.

Example: Jane wants to throw a prime bolt at John, for 4 damage.

Step2: Math it out.

Example: Jane needs 3 successes. 1 to target John, 2 for effect. Cost of one quint (For prime)

Step3: Roll it.

Example: Jane rolls Arete 3 at Diff 7(vulgar4+3prime). She gets 1 success.

Step4: Use Chart to determine what Jane can now do.

Example: She can continue trying to cast to finish the spell, but at a +1 difficulty to the roll. Or, she can stop. If she stops, a minor and trivial thing happens. (She doesn't have enough successes to do more then target John.) Lets go to hypotheticals.

Hypothetical1: Jane rolls again, at difficulty 8 now. She gets 2 successes. She now gets to unleash the fully intended effect, and it took her 2 rounds to do. 4 damage to John.

Hypothetical2: Jane rolls again, at Difficulty 8. She only gets one success. She can now go to difficulty 9 and try again, or unleash the effect with a 'semifunctional' state. I tend to rule this as going off weaker then intended. (2 successes: 1 to target person, 1 for 2 damage).

The above listed is pretty close to accurate for how magic is described in the book. All the rolls take one round to do. This is by the book.

Conjecture

Now here is where it gets wonky. There is mention in the books of extended rolls. Of rituals taking many hours to complete with many mages. Of some rotes and effects taking days to pull off, etc, etc, etc. The issue with these claims is that.... why would anyone ever want to cast hours at a time, when you can do the exact same thing rounds at a time? I've never managed to see an effect that -needed- to be done over hours. Precedents for the below:

1. Forged by Dragon Fires states that for every roll to craft an item it takes one hour. There is no mention of the difficulty increasing on rolls after the first. You continue to use the same difficulty.

2. Page 217 of Core Revised Mage Ruleback described extended actions. "For example, if your character attempts to summon a powerful Umbrood, each roll might represent an hour of chanting, gesturing, and reciting incantations." It mentions Chapter Six frequently refer to extended actions when describing difficult or lengthy tasks. I found nothing representing magic casting, or again why someone would not just do it under 'combat' casting rules, of 1 round per action. (Unless a ST demands they do it that way, which... Well, we don't have STs.)

WARNING: EVERYTHING BELOW THIS POINT IS NOT A RULE

My proposition!

Two types of Casting, known going forwards as Combat Casting and Ritual Casting. Combat Casting follows all of the rules listed above, as the book describes magic. Ritual Casting follows it mostly, with the following distinctions.

- Every roll takes one hour.

- You can not take advantage of the -1 difficulty from 'taking extra time'.

- The difficulty of a spells does not increase unless a Mage botches or garners 0 successes on a roll. (This is the big benefit)

- You may only ritual for a number of hours(rolls) equal to your Stamina.

- If you have High Ritual (Guide to traditions) you may roll High Ritual + Stamina, and treat your stamina as 1 higher for each success.

- If you want to cast beyond the limit of your stamina, you roll stamina vs 6 for the first hour beyond your limit. Then vs 7 for the second, vs 8 for the third, vs 9 for the fourth, vs 10 for the fifth. At this point, you can not cast any more without expending 1 WP per roll (Taking away the ability to use the WP to gain an auto-success on the casting)

Example of Ritual Casting

Jane wants to get 20 successes to completely reprogram Johns brain using mind5. Jane has stamina 3, and Arete 5. Vulgar 4 + Mind 5 (For simplicity, we'll go with nothing special being added on.

Hour 1 - 1 success

Hour 2 - 3 successes

Hour 3 - 2 successes

Jane rolls stamina vs 6 and gets any amount of successes

Hour 4- 1 success

Jane rolls stamina vs 7 and gets any amount of successses

Hour 5 - 0 successes. (Difficulty goes up to 10)

Jane rolls stamina vs 8 and gets any successes

Hour 6 - Botch. Jane spends WP to avoid taking it (Only once per effect) Janes difficulty is now 11, requiring her to lower it with quintessence to continue

Jane rolls stamina vs 9 and gets any successes

Hour 7- Botch.

Jane now takes 6 paradox for Vulgar with Witness botch (5mind + 1). Because its an extended action, Jane takes 7 more, one for each step of the casting. She is in a world of hurt and the effect fails.