/CofD/&/wodg/ Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness General

>cast spell on object, person or place
>they acquire your Signature Nimbus
>your Signature Nimbus is a booby trap for any Mage who investigates it
>which they will, because they're fucking Mages

This merit could be renamed "I'm a colossal jackass" and it would still fit

Ooh, he got told.

>Magical Components
Not being derisive; what are those?

Well, there are still speedbumps, the arcana got nerfed, and everything just is so eh. You can't do much Lasting shit either now, because no, that's too broken.

What happens if I turn a chunk of iron into a sandwich, eat it, metabolize it, and then cancel the spell?

You gonna elaborate or...

But the tilt will give them, like, a -4 on something specific for a little bit. It's mean spirited, but not especially dangerous. Hell, a friendly Mage could give their nimbus a positive effect with that.

Ooh! Ooh! How many gender neutral pronouns are used?

Count of xim and xer?

None. At most, theirs s/he for an astral lich that has forgotten it's gender since it's so goddamn old.

You die of iron poison.

>unironically believing people will build a positive nimbus Tilt

I dunno what game you're playing

An option for Nameless and (with some STs) FC mages to up their Arcana (and do some more cool and nifty shit, that Yantras fucking cannot, by the way) by 1 dot if they jump through hoops like drugs and ritual scarification and hanging off meathooks by the skin of your back.

I did have a 5-4-2 spread legitimately, which that chart the guy upthread linked. I just was known to the Concilium as a double master, officially, since they've, you know, seen me cast Mastery spells in two arcana.

Most of the arcana got buffed, in the long run. Matter especially, actually. Dave will answer the lasting questions, I'm sure.

The book doesn't say so! What happens to the iron which is now in illegal bonds which are impossible, chemistry-wise?

The positive one normally effects you, which is helpful.

Life, Wisdom, Fate, Prime.

>, like, a -4 on something

Gnosis/2 total in penalties and bonuses. You'd have to be Gnosis 7 or better to inflict a -4 penalty, and that's all it can do.

Dude, fate got SO MUCH BETTER, are you nuts? It finally feels like Fate instead of probability.

Also their genitals probably fell off. Leprosy and all.

Fuck you, I'm gonna be positive.

>Dave will answer the lasting questions, I'm sure.

Giving the option to do lasting stuff in any meaningful capacity would mean that the -10 Indefinite reach shit is bypassable, so they never will.

Also, we've known how wisdom was going to work for over a year now. theonyxpath.com/sophias-choice-mage-the-awakening/

-10 is a cakewalk, especially if you have the primary factor as duration. Wait, IT'S ALSO ALWAYS BEEN -10.

So, it fucks with agency even better, you mean? I wonder what it would feel like for players when their enemy has Fate and they can do nothing because all their beginnings are already doomed.

OR

Their enemy has to be kept artificially retarded as not to do the aforementioned.

>The book doesn't say so!
Yes because it expects you to use your brain

It also always was a +10 (or something) to threshold and no one cast it fucking Instantly. Not so easy now, is it.

It's fate. So obviously if will affect your personal fate. How the fuck do you think it would work? It's not the arcana of Probability, it's Fate. So obviously agency doesn't always hold.

But I don't have an Enlightened brain IRL. I have no idea what happens if molecules in my body suddenly have carbon swapped around for iron.

Besides, even if I do die from iron poisoning, what toxicity poison I am dying from?

Seriously? If your still doing rituals, you can get a +5 by extending casting time. You read that, right? Are you defending fucking 1e ritual magic? Seriously? The most broken thing in Mage?

>You can't do much Lasting shit either now, because no, that's too broken.
Thank fucking christ. It's the reason i never ST'd more than like two mage games without huge houserules because it was so godamn easy to just fuck everything using that

So fucking make it Probability instead of Fate?

That same problem is in Demon with the Lucky Break embed.

Angels are supposed to be able to know embed-equal powers, no?

So, what are some of your preliminary house rules that you've figured out?

Mine so far:
>Imbued Items do not cost Mana to use unless the spell they cast costs Mana.

No-brainer here, the Mana cost completely ruins imbued items as a viable anything.

>Primary Factor for all spells is Potency. Players may reduce Potency to raise any other spell factors on a one-to-one basis, in addition to taking dice penalties as normal.

Too many good spells get gimped by shitty base spell factors (Forces 5 and Scale being the operative example). Since most spells' Primary Factor is Duration, RAW your choice is basically to have a spell that fizzles after a few turns or lasts for days beyond what you needed it for.

>inb4 "user is butthurt mages aren't supreme anymore"

They'll probably be back in Signs of Sorcery, with the rest of the "you haven't spent the exp, but want to reach to higher mechanics" rules.

Not this guy, but....
Dude, really? "It's supposed to fuck things up, so deal with it" is the best you could come up with? Is it not obvious that if some sort of power demotes PCs to the roles of volitionless statists in what's supposed to be their own story, it's NOT something you would want to be bringing to the game?

Time called, why aren't you assassinating all your PCs before they even grow up to be mages?

Mind 4 Seers dropping instant-kill mind control spells from sympathetic range. etc.

The game has always been like this, with enemies "pretending to be retarded."

No one wants the arcana if Probability. We don't want Entropy from Ascension again.

>Republican Ted Cruz officially suspends his campaign after losing the #IndianaPrimary

HOLY SHIT DAVE WHAT DID YOU DO!?

If duration is the primary factor, you get up to your arcanum in free shifts up the table. If it's potency primary, you can spend a reach to swap it to duration.

No, I haven't read that and I can't find it in my copy of the leaked pdf either. Page, please?

No, I'm not defending it. I've just highlighted that "It always was like this" isn't a fair argument, since it effectively wasn't. It wasn't a problem since no one had to deal with it and we have to, now.

So your complaint is that your specific splat's gimmick build isn't accounted for in all of the one book that's been almost released for 2e.

Talk to your Storyteller about converting the character so he keeps his distinctive traits. It was always going to take some hacking to update an ongoing game to the new edition.

They have finally made Fate magic affect fate, and people are bitching that it affects fate too much. What the fuck.

And that was one of its problems - you had to focus on not noticing this discrepancy and not thinking about "Hey, if I could do this, other guy could do that too."
Or you could say that this thing is what actually keeps the mage on the "street-level" - not the teethless Paradox or laughable Hubris, but the overwhelming threat of being actually NOTICED by some of the bigger mages. Did you not hear of Multiple Assured Destruction?

>Time called, why aren't you assassinating all your PCs before they even grow up to be mages? etc

Except in my games I will assassinate the PCs with Time 4 if they aren't protected from the enemy who can do that, and consider it fair if someone does it to me when I didn't protect my character well enough.

If your GM is nice and prefers to hold your hand -- it's not the game's fault. I prefer NPCs I create and interact with in the games of others to not be stupid.

Maybe because "affecting fate wholecloth" should not be availible option for player characters? Because it makes everything else errelevant, fucks with agency and makes writing plot for the game fucking NIGHTMARE?

P. 114

I've been rather unhappy with Fate from day one in 2006 but couldn't do much about it.

And this helps me to offset a -10 penalty how? It's capped.

My character was killed by an instant kill Forces spell by a Praetorian Seer because they fucked up and left some blood on the ground after an altercation with Seer pawns.

I felt it's fair, and the cabal got revenge for that.

Doesn't magic do that in general? How do you handle time mages? Just ban Acanthus right away?

So then why are you bitching about it now?

Either you were fine with being insta-killed with no real defense (in both your cases I can name ways where the enemies were holding back; the "leaving a bit of blood" was unnecessary for the Seer to kill you) or you aren't.

Because you can apply yantras as well?

Precognition is vague and could be interesting to play against - especially if you have precognition of your own - but even if not, seer usually could not predict everything, for it is stated in the spell's description that time is mutable.
Temporal Lifeline is Time 5, so something met not that often, and when it is, well.... 5 dots tend to fuck the game up, yes, but even then you could still fight - enemy does not authomatically knows who you were - or anything that he did not witness, really. You still have a chance. And timetravel beyond that is archmastery.
In most cases, your defense is evading notice, and a lot of things could be countered with creativity and preparation. Fate determinism, though, could be countered only with another Fate spell - otherwise you will be "doomed to fail" no matter what. At that point, what's even the point of playing?

>In most cases, your defense is evading notice, and a lot of things could be countered with creativity and preparation.
Nope!

Seers have a weak enough withstand connection to every individual on the planet that all they would have to do is have or have a friend with Space, intensify the sympathy with "whoever spoiled my plan" or "whoever is plotting against me" and they could annihilate them at will.

>Fate determinism, though, could be countered only with another Fate spell - otherwise you will be "doomed to fail" no matter what. At that point, what's even the point of playing?
And Time can only be defended against with another Time spell.

Without Time to defend, you won't even notice that your timeline is being monkeyed with, since (to you) things were always that way, and it's especially true for the Time assassination, since not even Time actually gets to defend you from it; casting a spell on a version of you that wasn't a Mage yet means there's no possible magical defense.

Well, space/mind/whatever shield, veiling that hides you? It's difficult, but possible, and it's thrilling to thinking through nuances of a life in such a society.

Let me get this straight: in 2e you could SOMEHOW cast spells at the past before the archmastery?

>Well, space/mind/whatever shield, veiling that hides you? It's difficult, but possible, and it's thrilling to thinking through nuances of a life in such a society.
You can't possibly keep it up as long as he can keep up the counter-weight, especially since he's the stronger mage. He only has to get the sympathy in range long enough to cast the kill spell.

>Let me get this straight: in 2e you could SOMEHOW cast spells at the past before the archmastery?
That's the only possible reading I could get out of the Temporal Sympathy attainment? Cast a healing spell on someone's past self, and it retroactively applies.

should direct damage spells be withstood?

I am really on the fence about this. On 1 hand, it is a lot harder to space snipe someone to death. On the other, sensory ranged spells(1 reach) can't be dodged, meaning that if a mage has built themselves for murder spells, they can spam 3 bashing damage attacks every single turn(for a while, at least until the paradox adds up) as long as they have their dedicated tool.

On the third hand, if direct damage spells are withstood, you need to take like a -10 penalty to attempt damage on most moderately tough baddies, making rotes literally the only way to go.

Well, good news! In 2e, you can go back scenes at Time 3!

Temporal Sympathy lets you cast into the past as spacial sympathy lets you cast across the country.

I mean, there are plenty of other ways to hurt someone then just a direct damage spell.

The doomed to fail also doesn't make you automatically fail. Fate spells don't actually force you to do anything. The environment around you just pushes you one way or another.

Werewolf superior.

Mage inferior.

Addiction would be good. If all it gives you is a bit of bashing/lethal healing at the cost of, say, willpower, I think that would be perfectly workable. Talk to your ST about it.

Reminder that werewolfs in non human form have no genitals

werewolves in gauru have no genitals
other forms they have everything (supersized)

You could use quicksilver flesh for that, right? If you were hanging out in Gauru?

that kinda stuff doesn't make for fun stories though :(

Thanks for the Input. Surprised someone answered because of all the Mage talk.

>Temporal Summoning
Temporarily raising the dead.
Man that's disturbing.
"Hey Frank, I don't have enough juice to go for very long, so you've got 1 minute to tell me everything you know about the guy who killed you."

ritual casting to the maximum, a couple of fellow mages or sleepwalkers giving you extra die through helping rules, yantras...big spells require big effort.
I feel like a lot of people's problems with Mage 2E are that you can't whip out extremely powerful spells at a moment's notice.

>Let me get this straight: in 2e you could SOMEHOW cast spells at the past before the archmastery?

If someone has already Ascended they vanish from the Phenomenal World's past. But you could fuck with a second-degree master's pre-Awakening self, conceivably. It wouldn't be easy but you could do it.
Temporal sympathy can be difficult to work against.

That is not explicated in the text! Fat gauru cock can be as canon as your ST wants!!!

Well gee, now aside from the Space-sniping we have TIme-sniping? I could barely contain my excitement at the news.
No, I was talking about 1e, where things were, you know, less Continuum. Here? Well. It appears that that now playing with wibbly-wobbly ball of temporal stuff is inevitable, seeing how it's sympathy.
Yeah, just like bullet that pushes in your skull technically does not make you authomatically dead.

NP. As a player in a long-ish running Hunter game I've found that supernatural abilities tied to Willpower are a GREAT limiter on mortals with abilities.
I know that my telepathic/recently telekinetic college student ends up scrambling for willpower refreshes pretty often if it's a session where I'm burning through it for psychic shenanigans.

If anything takes away player agency, it's mind. Mind 2 let's you totally dominate someone, order them to commit suicide even. I take it you haven't actually read through the whole book, though.

but out of curiosity why do you think taking medicine cost will power? Maybe for every week or so without the pills cost a willpower point to power through the addiction? So every pill bottle has enough for say a month but if I want to use it to heal damage It lowers my supply and I wont be able to get more till I contact Cheiron HQ again.

Problem is, with Mind, there's a lot of safeguards against that kind of shit. Inborn resistance(resolve), relevant merits, prime armour(in 1e), mind armour, the works. I once made a dude who could have soaked mind sword of our cabal's mind master with his sheer grit and willpower - no magical shields needed. Domination is discrete happenstance - you could be quickly subdued by your buddies and counterspelled by your mind mage. Fate, though, is overarching and oftentimes is unnoticed, since it works through environment. And no, I did not read the book completely, I just read the thread.

>mfw late again

...

Then I don't even know what you're complaining about. The fate spells make opportunities appear to get people to do things. The closest thing you can do to control a PC is change their aspirations and/or obsessions. Fate is coincidental more than anything.

Yeah, it's a concise way of doing all those buffs it used to have.

lots of oaths and geases

Those look really good, and feel thematic.

Surprising amount of spells let you make sleepwalkers.

I was thinking of it in game mechanical terms. Most supernatural abilities mortals can get in CofD cost willpower to activate, and Cheiron abilities are usually implants rather than pills or medication.
So, willpower to activate your regeneration organ. The pill idea would be another way to fluff it but the actual regenerative abilities should cost willpower imo.

So with multiple -10 castings to permanently give a human a supernatural merit and then alter it up one, you could give regular humans stuff like biokenisis?

it wouldn't be that hard
it's a reach and -10 for indefinite duration, but you'd bring that up with yantras and sacraments
more reach for whatever potency you wanted
it's actually one of the easier spells, unless you wanted to do something like cast it at range, which would be stupid

Interactive mage charactersheet WHEN???

Okay so help me understand something because im an idiot. You can increase the primary factors of a thing by steps by taking penalties. So lets say a spell lists duration as its primary factor, then by taking a -2 penalty when casting you can take it from one hour to one day. Lets say i instead want to increase the potency of said spell, or some other factor, how do i do that?

you'd need reach for both of those (standard duration is countedin turns, you need to reach to advanced duration to get it to hours/days)
though you get a bonus on the primary factor depending on your arcana dots

spend a reach to change the primary factor to potency so you can get some free boosts to it. Everything else can be increased one step at a time at a cumulative -2.

I fucking wish.

tomorrow