Creating experienced characters / Awakening experienced mortals

[lbeaumanior]

Greetings,

What are the rules for those that awakened later in life? In this case existing experienced mortals.

Do they get the mage template (extra resistance attribute dot, Gnosis 1, 6 Arcana dots, and 3 extra merit dots) and after being inducted to an Order: Rotes + High Speech + Initial status dots?

[Heavy Arms]

They don't get the difference in starting Merit dots, but otherwise yes, you just give a mortal that Awakens the starting Mage template (presuming they have some source of training), though lots of groups will introduce things slowly over a few sessions rather than dump on everything at once.

More experienced characters in general are handled by just giving out starting XP.

[Epimetheus]

Greetings,

What are the rules for those that awakened later in life? In this case existing experienced mortals.

Do they get the mage template (extra resistance attribute dot, Gnosis 1, 6 Arcana dots, and 3 extra merit dots) and after being inducted to an Order: Rotes + High Speech + Initial status dots?

According to signs and sorcery it's gnosis 1, 3 arcana (1 in one ruling, 2 in the other), and 1 resolve or composure. There are also additional addons to awakenings that can grant familiars/artifacts/ move around dots.

[Scriptorian]

Greetings,

What are the rules for those that awakened later in life? In this case existing experienced mortals.

Do they get the mage template (extra resistance attribute dot, Gnosis 1, 6 Arcana dots, and 3 extra merit dots) and after being inducted to an Order: Rotes + High Speech + Initial status dots?

There’s rules for newly Awakened characters in Signs of Sorcery pg. 133. In short, a new mage only gets three Arcana dots, 1 Gnosis, 8 Wisdom, the extra Resistance dot, and nothing else. The core template, on the other hand, assumes the character has had some training and a few months experience. Depending on the circumstances of your game, either template may be appropriate.

[nofather]

They don't get the difference in starting Merit dots

Probably because mortals start with 7 Merit dots at character creation, while supernaturals tend to have 10.

[lbeaumanior]

Probably because mortals start with 7 Merit dots at character creation, while supernaturals tend to have 10.

Yes, mortal creation has 7 merit dots, and all supernaturals get 10. So I expected mortals to get the difference.

[Tessie]

Yes, mortal creation has 7 merit dots, and all supernaturals get 10. So I expected mortals to get the difference.

I think those extra dots are for the player's benefit. Supernaturals have access not only to almost all mundane Merits that are available for mortals but also a whole slew of new Merits specific to their template. Increasing the free dots allows players to add things like Shadow Name, Occultation, a location Merit (Hallow/Sanctum/Demesne), an item Merit (Artifact/Enhanced Item/Grimoire/Imbued Item) and/or an Order Merit (Adamant Hand/Egregore/Lex Magica/Masque/Prelacy/Techné) while still having a little room for mundane Merits. Mage especially is ridiculous in the amount of Merits you'd potentially want for your character.
Supernatural Merits are exclusive for mortals (generally) but in my experience they're far less common (and often disallowed in many games that focuses on street level play) and when they are used it's rarely more than a single Merit. That's in stark contrast to how you could easily spend more than your three extra dots on Mage exclusive Merits when creating a character.

But in-setting there's no reason for a newly Awakened mage to gain any extra Merit dots at all.

If you want to be generous anyway you could grant a rebate of sorts. For the first six dots of Mage exclusive Merits they buy they don't have to spend XP to gain the second, fourth or sixth dots. Otherwise, as already mentioned above, more experienced characters just start with more XP. The standard bonus XP is 5/10/15/25/35/50/100 depending on how experienced. That table isn't reproduced in Mage, probably because of word count and having to juggle two different XP types.

[Dave Brookshaw]

Yeah - the main rulebook's template assumes a year or so of training by an Order until the new mage is ready to go out on their own, while the one in Signs of Sorcery is for the very instant after their Awakening. If you're running a Chronicle where an existing character will Awaken, use the Signs of Sorcery one unless you want to time-skip their basic training.

[lbeaumanior]

Yeah - the main rulebook's template assumes a year or so of training by an Order until the new mage is ready to go out on their own, while the one in Signs of Sorcery is for the very instant after their Awakening. If you're running a Chronicle where an existing character will Awaken, use the Signs of Sorcery one unless you want to time-skip their basic training.

Thanks for the answer!

Would you make the additional 3 dots of merits that Supernaturals get over mortals, as part of that year for an experience mortal character?

[Cleverest of Things]

Thanks for the answer!

Would you make the additional 3 dots of merits that Supernaturals get over mortals, as part of that year for an experience mortal character?

I would lean towards giving them a free dot of order status if they join an order, and maybe artifact dots if they undergo a metamorphic awakening. I'd let them take merit dots for magical merits in general, but everything besides maybe Status and Shadow name is throw into xp debt.