Fixes for Mage: Sorcerer's Crusade magic?

[Pielorinho]

Hi, folks! Long time no see. All right, enough with the pleasantries.

I'm getting ready to start a new campaign, using the Mage:Sorcerer's Crusade rules but set in 1670s Caribbean. With pirates. Natch.

Someone elsewhere strongly criticized my choice of rules systems, and mocked me for saying that in ship-to-ship combat I wanted mages to be each roughly equivalent to a big old cannon; he said they were more equivalent to God and would get away with anything. That really got up my nose, since the rules make it pretty clear that it's not a "get away with anything" system and that the GM is free to disregard rules at any point.

(Side note: if you are a stickler for rules and find such an approach irritating, fair enough--you probably want to stop reading this thread now. Like right now. Go ahead, I'll wait.)

I'm not about to let people get away with anything, but I can sort of see the point. Couldn't a mage go belowdecks and use a low-level effect to peer through a porthole and set a spark to any barrel of gunpowder in sight? If none is in sight, wouldn't a simple correspondence/connection 2 effect put one in sight? This would probably be forces2/connection 2, and with a single success end just about any battle. At worst we're probably talking forces3/connection2/prime2, a nasty combination, but manageable.

Or imagine other things: use of matter2/connection1 to warp a mast, or bring down a sail, or cause a cannon to warp. Entropy2/connection1 could cause a misfire in a cannon. And so on.

I freely admit I may be worrying too much: the rules, light though they are, might prevent such abuses through such things as familiarity requirements with connections, or the durability of certain items.

But just in case I'm not worrying too much, I'd like to have some things in place to keep a single mid-level spell from ending a ship-to-ship battle. Battle-enders are boring, especially ones that will work reliably in any battle.

Some ideas I've come up with:
-Casting magic from a moving vehicle incurs a +1 or +2 penalty; casting onto a moving target incurs a similar penalty. Max penalties on dice rolls are +3; if I impose both of these for ship-to-ship combat, that's a +3 penalty, making even a casual/coincidental effect with a single level-2 sphere have a base difficulty of 8--and that starts to get into the very difficult range. (Advantage: really easy to explain; disadvantage: may make mages useless in ship-to-ship combat). This is still my favorite option, as it favors more subtle magic.
-Just as you can't target someone's jugular vein in hopes that a single wound will kill them, you can't target a ship's gunpowder in hopes that a single success will destroy the ship. You can certainly try the spell, but in game terms you're targeting the ship, and your successes reflect the overall damage you do to the ship. If you don't do enough to cause a massive explosion, maybe you missed the barrel and instead set the deck nearby on fire.
-The smaller your target, the smaller your effect. If you're wanting to light a whole bonfire up, you might need one success to create a giant fire; if you're trying to light a candle, you might need one success to light a tiny flame. Similarly, if you're targeting a single rope on a ship, you'll still need several successes to damage it, even though you could do much more damage to the entire ship with the same number of successes.

Any thoughts, folks?

 

[Starman]

It's been a long while since I played any Mage, but it seems like you're on the right track, especially with your first idea.

Also, what about some story/world restrictions? What if the other ship has a mage casting protective spells or casting their own spells on the PCs ship? What if using magic brings the attention of someone you'd rather not have - the Order of Reason or worse?

 

[Umbran]

I don't know the details of Sorcerer's Crusade. I am, however, very familiar with Mage: the Ascension. I'll discuss it from that framework, and hope it is close enough.

A well-prepared Mage should be able to make mincemeat of an old sailing vessel, in theory. In practice, there are several limitations...

Correspondence 2 should be enough to see/scry on an object at moderate distance (say, inside a ship that is otherwise in sight). Cor1 is not enough to affect things at range - you need Cor 2 to handle at range but in line of sight, or Cor 3 to handle things outside of line of sight.

Forces itself cannot create a spark for the gunpowder - you either need some notable force already present to convert, or you need prime to create the spark. If there is, say, already a fire present near the gunpowder, Cor2/Forces2 would be sufficient (and, if they're keeping fire near their gunpowder, they deserve to go down). To create the spark out of nothing would be Cor2/Forces3/Prime2.

Note that the sight and the spark are different effects - you could easily rule that to target anything not in plain sight, they need to have the scry running while trying to perform the other effect - that'll drive up target numbers.

Sculpting objects (warping a mast) directly requires Matter 3 (for your ships, it'd take Cor2/Matter3). Transmuting the mast into a weak material (paper, or balsa wood, for example) could be Matter 2 (with Cor2 for range). But, that would generally require transmuting the *whole* mast, and the mast is big, so it'd take a few more successes to accomplish. Whole cannons weigh on the order of tons, and would take a bunch of successes to warp with Matter 3.

Entropy 2/ Cor2 could make a cannon misfire on one shot. Making a cannon misfire so bad it explodes sounds more like Entropy 3/Cor2 (that'd be "Slay Machine").

I don't know the paradox rules for SC - but most of these workings would be Vulgar in M:tA terms (unless the PC is clever about how they manage it).

In general, affecting large items takes multiple successes. And you don't typically get to affect only part of an object (unless you include higher levels of Correspondence to segment it).

Typically, doing magic takes your action for the round. So, if you're doing this working, you're not doing sensible stuff like dodging bullets. Multitasking requires Mind and/or Time magics.

And, of course, anything the PCs can do, so can the enemy. Ships that want to avoid such fate simply carry someone who can use Correspondence 2 to ward their ship (basically, countermagic on any and all ranged magical effects).

 

[Umbran]

Oh, and btw, with Prime3/Cor2 (maybe with Matter 1 or 2), a mage can probably make an object (say the helm, or the figurehead, or the like) that would provide the warding/countermagic I mention above without their needing to be present on ship!

 

[Nifft]

If the nascent Technocracy is in the game, then I say the more common position-determining devices ought to count as Correspondence counter-measures. It's too early for the nautical chronometer, but the sextant was around, and using one of those is pretty much literally performing a sacrificial rite: one dude is losing sight in one of his eyes just to lock down the ship's position using a tool of the Technocracy. He does this every day at an appointed hour. It's magic, damn it! Well, it's at least enough to count as counter-magic.

Also, it's a nice image: "They blinded themselves with Science."

Anyway. There's your excuse for no one-spell ship-killers (under normal circumstances). You could just leave this vague and say the PCs know for a fact that Correspondence doesn't work between ships, isn't that interesting: if they discover why, perhaps they can take counter-measures... but it seems to me that if they are in a position to destroy the other ship's sextant, they could probably sabotage the other ship just as easily, so that's fine.

- - -

So, you need to board an enemy ship in order to hit stuff on it with magic. That ought to be enough to ensure you're playing "pirates with magic" and not "magical modern warfare and we sometimes talk like pirates".

There's still plenty of awesome stuff for a mage to do with the ship's environment, and once they're on dry land all bets are off.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Pielorinho]

Umbran, those are all excellent points--I definitely appreciate the analysis from someone familiar with the system. And nifft, consider this an enthusiastic yoink--what a great idea!

 

[Reyemile]

I'm with your friend here. The posters here have given a great number of suggestions for working around the M:tA magic system, but why are you picking a system that you know you need to work around?

One of the strengths--and weaknesses--of Mage's system across editions is the ability to combine various types of magic to do all kinds of crazy crap. Paradox rules, and GM common sense, are there to prevent Mages from doing obviously abusive things like one-shotting werewolves by turning their skin into silver. But a prepared Mage mage should be easily able to combine his spheres to disable a mere cannon; that's built into the system.

Several of the solutions here--including universal counter-magic and generally invoking the 'you can't target the jugular on a person' rule--look like they could work. But ultimately, your PCs will try to do something awesome like detonating a ships powder stores, a feat that is theoretically within the powers given to them by the rules. And you will say no. As a player, I find nothing more frustrating to me than a GM declaring my scheme won't work by simple fiat to preserve his or her own sense of how the plot should go--and I suspect your PCs may feel similarly.

 

[Pielorinho]

Several of the solutions here--including universal counter-magic and generally invoking the 'you can't target the jugular on a person' rule--look like they could work. But ultimately, your PCs will try to do something awesome like detonating a ships powder stores, a feat that is theoretically within the powers given to them by the rules. And you will say no. As a player, I find nothing more frustrating to me than a GM declaring my scheme won't work by simple fiat to preserve his or her own sense of how the plot should go--and I suspect your PCs may feel similarly.

Hi, Reyemile! I'm certainly aware there's this feeling out there. I put these lines in the OP for just such a reason:

That really got up my nose, since the rules make it pretty clear that it's not a "get away with anything" system and that the GM is free to disregard rules at any point.

(Side note: if you are a stickler for rules and find such an approach irritating, fair enough--you probably want to stop reading this thread now. Like right now. Go ahead, I'll wait.)

Now, you may say that your objection is that you see my approach as railroading, and that I'd prevent PC actions in order to preserve the plot. Not true: most likely, if PCs encounter an enemy ship, I'll fully expect them to overcome it (most of the time). I just don't want the taking of the ship to be an occasion for boredom. Players will know this going in, and will know that I'll rule magick to preserve drama, tension, and fun.

Fair enough if you don't like this style of gaming. My group does, and I'm asking for feedback from folks with similar groups.

 

[Reyemile]

Hi Pielorhino,

I am in a similar group. We've specifically tossed a rules-heavy system in favor of more narrative approach, and we routinely houserule to manage things that have gotten over--or under--powered.

The difference in our points of view has to do with your original quote: you said the Mage specifies that it's not a "get away with anything" system. But in my view, lighting a spark in the powder room isn't getting away with anything.

To do so is a perfectly sensible, perfectly natural application of a Mage's powers. And I say this not only from a system perspective, but also from an in-universe one. The PCs clearly can create a spark in a room in the middle of a castle with appropriate Correspondence, Force, and maybe Prime. So why do they suddenly become useless, stupid, or both when on a boat and unable to perform this otherwise trivial magic trick? (notwithstanding Paradox for being looked at). The rule you've quoted is, IMHO, intended to avoid things much more obviously abusive such as the aforementioned example of insta-murdering werewolves.

From a rules perspective, I understand and support perfectly well declaring that boats can't be insta-killed with magic. But this isn't a matter of ignoring some rules, or changing rules for balanced. It's a matter of fundamentally misapprehending a system: You're using a system intended to provide near infinite flexibility of spellcasting in a setting that hinges on PCs being fundamentally inflexible in their abilities. And as liberal as I am with houserules, I cannot imagine a set of tweaks and changes that will make Mage do what you want it to.

 

[Pielorinho]

From a rules perspective, I understand and support perfectly well declaring that boats can't be insta-killed with magic. But this isn't a matter of ignoring some rules, or changing rules for balanced. It's a matter of fundamentally misapprehending a system: You're using a system intended to provide near infinite flexibility of spellcasting in a setting that hinges on PCs being fundamentally inflexible in their abilities. And as liberal as I am with houserules, I cannot imagine a set of tweaks and changes that will make Mage do what you want it to.

I disagree with you. I'm not making them fundamentally inflexible in their abilities. They certainly may make an effort to create a spark in the powder room. However, they'll almost certainly not succeed at it without a great deal of work and drama. They'll find that more indirect approaches will work better. Off the top of my head:
-Mind magic to convince the helmsman that the wind has shifted directions and to come about, costing the enemy ship the best use of her cannons for a turn.
-Force and/or matter magic to settle the seas for an instant around the PC ship, giving them a stable platform for firing.
-Spirit magic to summon a wind-spirit to foul the enemy ship's sails.
-Force and/or matter magic to ward the PCs' ship from enemy fire.
-Correspondence/mind magic combined to improve the aim of the PC ship's cannoneers.
-Entropy magic to control waves such that they're least favorable to the enemies when enemy cannons fire, and most favorable to PCs when PC cannons fire.
-On boarding the enemy ship, all sorts of crazy magic.

There's a lot that can be done. But, as I said, fights against interesting opponents won't be solved with insta-kill effects.