Here's a diagram of the floor you're currently on, the ground floor. More diagrams to follow as your characters go to those floors. Let me know if anything's unclear--I know it's pretty rough.
Not to direct you guys too much, but those of you with Spirit 2 or greater can cast Spirit Tongue on those without ranks in Spirit, if you like. In most cases, you can upgrade a "self" spell to touch with 1 more dot in the Arcanum. You can also take a dice pool penalty to increase the range, number of targets, area affected, etc. Check out the attached flowchart for more concise information on that.
Incidentally, this is the reference I use for adjudicating spells. It's faster than flipping through the book.
I think I should have put Empathy instead of expression. So, if you are going to let us change our sheets around, I'll change it for next time. (Joseph is really unlucky so far though... I don't think he's had two successes yet.)
Its a good thing he doesn't want us in the cellar, as there is no way to get there from the map...
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Last edited by magic_gathering2001; 26th November 2008 at 07:47 PM..
Reason: didn't want to double post
Also: Thorn has 3 dice in Wits, not 2. No big deal in this case...just for accuracy's sake.
She's taking a -1 "unskilled" penalty, since she has no ranks in Empathy. One of the fiddlier rules in WoD, in my opinion, but it does tend to make skill ranks more valuable, which I think is a positive result.
Quote:
Originally Posted by magic_gathering2001
I think I should have put Empathy instead of expression. So, if you are going to let us change our sheets around, I'll change it for next time. (Joseph is really unlucky so far though... I don't think he's had two successes yet.)
I'm thinking that when the Cormant House scene is over, everyone will have a chance to move things around their sheets and finalize their character. Sound good?
Quote:
Its a good thing he doesn't want us in the cellar, as there is no way to get there from the map...
You can get in there, if you want to. The house was built in the late 19th century, so the cellar is accessed from outside the house.
I'm thinking that when the Cormant House scene is over, everyone will have a chance to move things around their sheets and finalize their character. Sound good?
Yeah, sounds good to me. I wasn't sure how it was going to work, so I just thought I'd ask now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hella_Tellah
You can get in there, if you want to. The house was built in the late 19th century, so the cellar is accessed from outside the house.
It would be Gnosis (2) + Spirit (2) = 4. Since she's in safe territory to act mage-y, she can feel free to use High Speech and add a +1 onto it, for 5. Neither Spirit nor Death is ruling for you, so it will cost 1 point of mana.
It's my impression that mages can weave a related spell into a spell they're casting with 1 extra dot in the primary Arcanum, but I can't recall where, if at all, that's noted in the rules. I might be making that up.
*Blows on his conch shell to summon Solarious and his rules knowledge*
I found the relevant section on pages 128-129 of the core book. A mage that wishes to combine spells together must have 1 additional dot in each of the Arcana used, takes a -2 to the casting pool per spell over 1, and rolls the lowest pool out of all of the spells being combined. Additionally, she must meet a minimum Gnosis requirement:
2 spells = 3 gnosis
3 spells = 6 gnosis
4 spells = 9 gnosis
Unfortunately, this means that: A) I've been doing it wrong in other games for a while now, and B) Thorn must cast both spells separately, which would cost her 2 mana altogether.
It would be Gnosis (2) + Spirit (2) = 4. Since she's in safe territory to act mage-y, she can feel free to use High Speech and add a +1 onto it, for 5. Neither Spirit nor Death is ruling for you, so it will cost 1 point of mana.
It's my impression that mages can weave a related spell into a spell they're casting with 1 extra dot in the primary Arcanum, but I can't recall where, if at all, that's noted in the rules. I might be making that up.
*Blows on his conch shell to summon Solarious and his rules knowledge*
I found the relevant section on pages 128-129 of the core book. A mage that wishes to combine spells together must have 1 additional dot in each of the Arcana used, takes a -2 to the casting pool per spell over 1, and rolls the lowest pool out of all of the spells being combined. Additionally, she must meet a minimum Gnosis requirement:
2 spells = 3 gnosis
3 spells = 6 gnosis
4 spells = 9 gnosis
Unfortunately, this means that: A) I've been doing it wrong in other games for a while now, and B) Thorn must cast both spells separately, which would cost her 2 mana altogether.
You blow the horn, I'll answer. And take my attention away from my research paper which I really should be doing, but hey, this is what breaks are for.
When combining spells, there are approximately two ways you could go around about it. The first is a combined spell - the kind you just found in the Core. A combined spell is basically two spells smooshed together in one casting, either to squeeze off more spells in a single casting, or for spell control/spell tolerance purposes. A combined spell, despite being two spells in reality, it is counted as one, so you can have both a mage armor and a mage sight in a single tolerance slot, and still have the little things like Fate spells to smooth your path along, or buff spells to obscenely twink out your dice pools, and so on and so forth. These things are very carefully considered by mages who place themselves regularly in dangerous situations, especially Guardians of the Veil and Adamatine Arrow orders. They have the Gnosis and Arcana limits you listed above. If neither spell is a rote nor come from a ruling arcana, it would probably cost 2 mana.
Now, there is a second kind of method to mangling spells together - Conjunctional spells. Where combined spells need no harmony of purpose between the spells being cast together, Conjunctional spells must have a combined purpose that supplements each other in some way. For example, consider the Forces 3 'Autonomous Servant' spell (Core 167). It's base spell is Forces 3, and you can cast it that way if you want to manipulate something too dangerous for yourself to go within sight. However, with Mind 1, you can incorporate 'Two Thoughts, One Mind' so you can do two tasks at once without compromising either. Adding Mind 5 instead allows you to forget the servant completely while it goes about it's task. Adding Space 2 lets you send it out of sensory range and/or monitor it as it works. Keep in mind none of these effects/spells have anything to do with each other, but they all work together to achieve something, which makes it conjunctional. None of these effects have a specific Gnosis requirement, nor additional Arcana requirements.
However, there are limits to conjunctional spells without adding more dots. Take Portal Key for example. It's a simple Space 4 Patterning practice, but I don't believe you can combine it with the actual Portal spell, a Space 3 Weaving practice, without Space 5 (although it isn't really a big deal: take 1 extra turn and lock the portal with an instant spell that works with a single success). At which point, you'll throw up an instant portal with extended duration factors and Key it all in the same breath. I'm sure some people will disagree with me.
So really, it's a case-by-case thing. There are storytellers who allow some people to whip up a conjunctional mage sight of all their arcana once (but that was the once in the middle of a big action scene where you had to escape from an Astral oubliette before you starved/dehydrated to death IFRL). My proposed spell, which is a Mind2/Space2 concentration duration version of Sense Consciousness and Spatial Map, would be conjunctional (by my interpretation of the rules).
It's something that has a lot of loopholes and maybes. Balancing spells is an art, not an exact science. But as my favorite writer of MtAwk once said: balance it mechanically out of the game, but balance it with role-playing considerations in game.
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So for a conjunctional mind 1/prime 1, I could get both vision effects? Or would it be prime 2/mind 1, or mind 2/prime 1, or mind 2/prime 2?
Since you have gnosis 3, you can combine two spells at a given time by increasing the dot requirement of both spells by one. Hence, if you want to combine Supernal Vision with Aura Perception or Third Eye, you could do it with Prime 2/Mind 2. You would use the lower of the two dice pools and take a -2 penalty, so it would be Gnosis (3) + Mind (2) - Combination Penalty (2) = 3.
I had the terminology mixed up on Conjunctional spells, as is the ever-present danger in Mage. Conjunctional spells are spells that, by design, use multiple arcana, or that can have an additional element of an arcanum mixed in. The Fate 1 spell Sharpshooter's Eye is a good example: by design, it combines Fate and Space, and you have an option of using Life or Matter to lock on to either a living thing or an object.
So my general ruling is this: if it's combining the effects of two existing spells, use the Combined spell rules. When creating a brand new spell with Creative Thaumaturgy, it will be conjunctional if the spell seems to thematically require multiple arcana toward a related effect. If the effects seem totally unrelated, we'll roll them as combined spells. For example, if you'd like to cast a spell that transmutes a spirit into a block of steel, it will be conjunctional Spirit/Matter. If, on the other hand, you want to freeze a spirit in place while liquifying a steel door, I'll rule it as combined.
In the specific instance of using two Mage Sight spells at once, I'm going to rule that they need to be cast as combined.
And, of course, Supernal Vision is specifically mentioned to be able to be cast conjunctionally with Mind 1 for Aura Perception, because both spells reveal a portion of the aura. Only the conjunctional spell reveals both at once. Just to clarify things.
Combining Third Eye and Supernal Vision will be a combined spell, per Tellah's ruling.
The spirit metal-petrification spell, on the other hand, would actually a Matter/Life conjunctional spell with Spirit 2 to allow it to affect spirits.
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It has something to do with the base petrification spell being a Matter/Life spell, and to allow it to affect spirits you add Spirit 2. I think it has to do with the rule of thumb of Life spells just needing a conjunctional arcana to affect other supernatural templates... spirit 2 for werewolves, death 2 for vampires, prime 2 for protheans, and so on.
I suppose Spirit/Matter could petrify a spirit. It'll be a weird spell though...
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Okay, so, on reading the description, I could have Juno cast Spirit Tongue with a Death 1 component, to be able to see both spirits and ghosts in the Twilight.
Is that conjunctional, or would that require bloated Gnosis and Arcana and all that?
It's a simple conjunctional spell. At least, by the book. The Storyteller has the final say of course, but I'm pretty positive that Hella_Tellah will agree.
Okay, so, on reading the description, I could have Juno cast Spirit Tongue with a Death 1 component, to be able to see both spirits and ghosts in the Twilight.
Is that conjunctional, or would that require bloated Gnosis and Arcana and all that?
The description for Spirit Tongue says it has an option to add in Death 1 to see ghosts better, so yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by M:tA 246
The mage can see ghosts, too, but they appear hazy and indistinct and he cannot hear them unless he also uses Death 1 while casting this spell.
As a general principle, if the spell has a written additional component a mage can use conjunctionally, that's always going to be an option. I'd be a jerk otherwise! I just want to avoid a situation where a player wants to keep the number of spells s/he has active low, so s/he casts two or three unrelated spells at once "conjunctionally" to bypass that limitation. With written spells, I'll approach things with some degree of rigor. On the other hand, if you're making up spells from scratch with Creative Thaumaturgy, I'm likely to be very, very generous in what you can do by combining Arcana.
I'm quickly learning that play-by-post really is a more detail oriented style of play--if we were all sitting at the table playing together, the last two pages of text would have boiled down to me saying, "Go for it!" I feel more of a responsibility to make consistent rulings in play by post, though, since it's all in writing.
Also: I'm going down to my parents' house from approximately now through Saturday, so my posting will be at best erratic for that time.
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