Cross Casting
This is just a guideline to how I, Cross' Player, handle casting times with Cross. You are welcome to join me or laugh at me.
What is casting time?
Casting time is the amount of time it takes for your character to pull off a single arete roll. Effects can be comprised of a single arete roll, or extended into multiple arete rolls. There are two main styles of casting.
1. Combat Casting - Casting within the time lines of combat (3-5 seconds per roll)
2. Ritual Casting - Casting outside of combat. (One hour(ish) per roll)
Combat Casting
Combat Casting is when you cast at the speed of combat. This is one arete roll per round of combat. Combat casting is quick and dirty, and as a result it has a penalty that does not apply to ritual casting. Every roll after the first roll increases the diff by 1 unless you achieve the full intended effect. (As listed on Mage charts under the Degrees of Success option.)
Here is a guideline to an example of all the steps of Combat Casting.
EXAMPLE:
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).
Ritual Casting
Ritual Casting is when your character takes a great length of time to focus and work on his or her effect. This can be anywhere from an hour to hours per roll of arete. This is used best with the assistance of other mages or acolytes to perform the ritual. described in almost every rote or extended effect that involves a lot of work. (The Iron Avatar Rote, summoning in powerful Umbroods, breaking the Dreamshell, etc, etc). Mechanics for it can be a bit harder to find. Here is what I use.
- Every roll takes one hour minimum.
- The -1 difficulty for taking 'several turns' would not apply in this case, as you are already taking several hundred turns per roll. Alternatively, sure it can apply! But it might be something crazy like a day per roll of arete.
- The difficulty of an arete roll does not increase unless a Mage botches or garners 0 successes on an arete roll. At which point, it increases by 1.
- You may only ritual for a number of hours(arete rolls) equal to your temporary willpower at the moment you start the effect.
- If you have High Ritual (Guide to traditions) you may roll High Ritual + Stamina, and treat your willpower as 1 higher for each success. This can only be done once, at the beginning of the ritual.
- If you want to cast beyond the limit of your stamina, you roll stamina+high ritual 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/recover from botch on the casting)
EXAMPLE:
Step1: Declare intention.
Example: Jane wants to teleport herself to China
Step2: Math it out.
Example: Jane needs .... 9 successes? Sure, lets say 9.
Step3: Roll it.
Example: Jane rolls Arete 3 at Diff 7(vulgar4+3corr). She gets 1 success.
Step4: Keep rolling it.
Example: Jane rolls Arete 3 at Diff 7(vulgar4+3corr). She gets 2 successes.
Step5: Keep on doing this until she gets total required successes.
Hypothetical1: Jane gets up to 7 successes(On 6 rolls, requiring 6 hours) then she botches. She spends one WP to avoid the botch, and drops to 6 successes. She continues to roll, and botches again. Now she has a total of 7 hours into the casting. She takes paradox equal to 7(number of rolls)+Standard amount for botching a vulgar sphere3 effect. (At this point, Jane was rolling stamina to continue casting, as she had gone over her base limit)
Hypothetical2: Jane gets a few 0s, and the diff rises to 9 but she pulls it off anyway in 10 hours. Jane teleports to China without problem. (Jane had been rolling stamina to continue casting to get to 10 hours)
Why one or the other?
Combat Casting
The very short difference? Combat casting is limited by difficulty. It will go up by +1, +2, +3, +4, etc, to the point that you are functionally unable to cast well enough to keep going. A starting diff (Before modifiers) effect at 5 will cap at 8, and stay there. The longer you cast, the more difficult it will be to bring it down below 8. If your starting diff is 8-9-10, it can become impossible to continue casting after only 3 arete rolls. (Sphere level 5 effects for example, will always be here)
Example:
Cross uses a Prime effect to garner Quintessence from nothing. Its why I jokingly refer to him as a living node. It is a coincidental(3)+Prime(5). That means a base difficulty of 8. Lets assume I have no other modifiers. Because Thresholds are not allowed, I would only get to roll it three times. (Diff 8, diff 9, then diff 10) At this point, I NEED to lower the difficulty to keep going. Taking more rounds, burning quint (Gain quint by burning quint, lawl) or something else would need to be done to continue.
Ritual Casting
Ritual Casting is not useable in combat. But you can do harder effects, or effects that require multiple successes -much- better this way. Without a steadily increasing difficulty, you can keep the number flat and won't need to burn more and more quint to keep the difficulty manageable, or find other means to keep casting. Ritual Casting is really the only way to pull off incredibly awesome and powerful effects, without detonating them in your own face, or having a horde of acolytes at your beck and call.
Example:
Same as above. Cross can use a prime effect (Base 8) and keep rolling it at 8 indefinitely until he gets bored, until he botches/gets 0 successes, or until he gets the desired amount of quint. Its only downside, is that it will take HOURS for every roll.
