Mage Charts

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Revision as of 17:54, 1 October 2014 by imported>Emurphy
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Magical Difficulties
(Minimum difficulty 3. If difficulty would otherwise be above 9, see '+rules mage misc' for house rules on thresholds.)
Activity Difficulty Modifier
Researches lore on subject before using magic -1 to -3
Has item resonating with target's essence (sympathetic magic) -1 to -3
Near a Node -1 to -3
Uses a specialty focus -1
Uses a unique focus -1
Uses a focus when it's not required -1
Extra time spent on each step of the magic (Spending several turns for one roll instead of one turn) -1
Spending Quintessence -1 per point, maximum of -3 to final difficulty
Appropriate Resonance (personal or from Tass) -1
Opposed Resonance (personal or from Tass) +1
Distant or hidden subject +1
Fast-casting +1
Mage distracted +1 to +3
Mage in conflict with Avatar +1 to +3
Domino Effect +1 to +3
Outlandish or greater feat +1 to +3
Surpassing a necessary focus +3
Magical Feats
(Do not use this chart for direct damage Effects; use the damage/duration chart.)
Feat Successes Required
Simple feat

(lighting a candle by touch, enhancing your senses defending yourself from mental attack with Mind)

1
Standard feat

(creating a small fire at range, sensing someone with Mind or Life magic, healing yourself)

2
Difficult feat

(igniting a flammable object at range, reading or affecting someone's emotions with Mind magic, transforming yourself)

3
Impressive feat

(Blasting someone with fire, forcing someone to perform an action, altering someone else's shape in a minor way)

4
Mighty feat

(Blowing down a wall, altering someone's psyche, conjuring a fantastic living creature)

5-10
Outlandish feat

(Blowing apart a car, turning a small mob into drones, binding a potent spirit)

10-20
Godlike feat

(Blowing up a building, putting a whole city to sleep, rewriting your own Pattern permanently)

20, and up, up, up
Damage and Duration
Scoring Damage: Each success expended to score damage inflicts up to two levels of damage. For Mind attacks, this damage is bashing, for most other Spheres, it's lethal. Charged with Quintessence, it's aggravated. Forces attacks inflict one extra level of damage automatically.
Scoring Duration: Each success expended on duration extends the duration beyond instant/one turn. One additional success extends the duration to a scene; two extra successes, a day; three extra successes, a full story; four extra successes, six months; five extra successes, the Storyteller's option. Scoring double the normal successes required for a complete success on the Effect may make it permanent, the the Storyteller's option.
Scoring Area: Affecting a Pattern other than the mage himself requires a success. Each additional Pattern affected after the first requires additional successes at the Storyteller's discretion. A giant ball of flame is harder to make than a simple, single bolt of fire.
Example of Total Scoring: A mage scores four successes on a vulgar fire blast. Two success are used for damage, so it inflicts five levels of aggravated damage (four for the successes, one for a Forces effect, aggravated for fire). One success is used because it is affecting a target other than the mage, and the last success is used to strike an additional target. Two targets are struck, each taking five levels of aggravated fire damage.
Degree of Success
Botch: The mage fails to bend the Tapestry correctly, and the entire Effect comes crashing down. No effect occurs, and the mage gains Paradox.
Total failure: No successes, but no botch. Includes successes cancelled by ones rolled. The spell has no effect, yet. The mage may continue, but with cumulative difficulty penalty of one. He may also quit and start over. Paradox accumulates for Vulgar effects as if the spell had succeeded.
Beginning success: Some successes, but less than 50%. The magic has not formed completely, but it can still be finished properly. Continuing the Effect incurs a cumulative difficulty penalty of one, if desired. If the mage stops now, the Effect, has only some minor, trivial result, and Paradox accumulates normally.
Partial success: 50% of the necessary successes. The mystic accomplishes what he set out to do, but not well as he would have liked. The effect is incomplete, missing some pieces or in some way flawed. The mage can continue to accumulate successes if desired, at an increased difficulty, or he may stop, take the appropriate Paradox and leave the Effect at this semi-functional state.
Success: 100% of successes required. The mage does exactly what he wanted to do.
Extraordinary success: 150% or better. The mage not only succeeds, he succeeds brilliantly. The Effect has a much greater range and strength then he hoped for originally, but not too much to go outside the bounds of the mage's intent. Some all-or-nothing Effects might not have extraordinary results (you did or you didn't), at the storyteller's discretion.
Correspondence Ranges
Successes Range Connection
One Line of sight Body Sample
Two Very Familiar Close possession or companion
Three Familiar Possession or casual friend
Four Visited once Acquaintance or object used more than once
Five Described location Briefly touched or met object or person
Six+ Anywhere on earth no connection
Times Lines
Successes Effect Time-span
One Within a year
Two Five years
Three 20 years
Four 50 years
Five 100 years
Six+ 500 years
Ten+ 1000 years or more
Gauntlet
Area Difficulty Successes Needed
Node 3 One
Deep Wilderness 5 Two
Rural Countryside 6 Three
Most Urban Areas 7 Four
Downtown 8 Five
Technocratic Lab* 9 Five+
*Note that Technocratic Dimensional Science treats such an area as a Node.

The Gauntlet may vary by up to two points due to local conditions. A haunted, abandoned lot in the middle of the city at night has lower Gauntlet than the rest of downtown, while a carefully trimmed and maintained woodlands in a biodome has a higher Gauntlet.

Actually reaching across the Gauntlet or stepping into the spirit world causes one level of aggravated damage for each failure on the dice roll.

Difficulties
Coincidental Highest Sphere + 3
Vulgar Without Witnesses Highest Sphere + 4
Vulgar With Witnesses Highest Sphere + 5
Paradox
(Five or more points of Paradox may trigger a Backlash)
Coincidental No Paradox
Coincidental Botch Gain one point of paradox per highest sphere used.
Vulgar Without Witnesses Gain one point of paradox per highest sphere used.
Vulgar Without Witnesses Botch Gain one point of paradox per highest sphere used, plus one.
Vulgar With Witnesses Gain one point of paradox per highest sphere used, plus one.
Vulgar With Witnesses Botch Gain two points of paradox per highest sphere used, plus two.