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[Ambrosia]

By the way, Faradn, regarding your houserule...another option would be to limit pure-correspondence separations to non-lethal applications
That way Correspondence gains a lot of single-sphere utility, but in order to do actual Damage you'd have to use the standard conjunctional rules.

Also, it's worth remembering that the standard conjunctional rule does something else in regards to Correspondence: It makes you need higher levels of it, depending on the target pattern. It's best to keep that in place, else Correspondence 2 becomes *very* powerful.

[Ambrosia]

If I recall right (as written in my post), the Order of Hermes actually quite formally ends a character's 'Oldlife', akin to how the Technocracy does it. The person officially 'dies' or disappears, changing their name and everything. I think there's even a short-story in Truth Beyond Paradox that pretty much has that as a topic....

[Ambrosia]

Personally, I'm quite fine with requiring conjunctional spheres being required for teleporting somebody organ's out, really.
Granted, simply requiring a lot more sucesses instead would be an interesting houserule, but in my mind, affecting parts of a single pattern is a good reason for the conjunctional rule (as is locking). But, as I said, it would make for a fine houserule.


...that said this reminds me of a Wonder I came up with once;

Consider a long blade that does not harm you. It does not even *hurt* you. Instead, when it passes through a matter or life...

[Ambrosia]

A fair argument!
While it wouldn't apply to computers, I can see the Mind sphere being able to automate some things in the mind of a person - the type of things you don't really need to think about anymore when you've practiced them. Language is excellent for that, as are certain degrees of math.

[Ambrosia]

Oh, I very much agree with a lot of this But I think it highly depends on the Mage in question, and also their age; That is, how long they have been awake.

The state - heck, the actual moment of the event - of awakening fundamentally changes a person, at least when it comes to their very perceptions of the world.
It can (and probably will) change more than just those over time, but the Mage also doesn't immediately drop all their morals, all their ingrained behaviors, social desires or relationships - the human psyche, even awakened, doesn't completely flip in an instant....

[Ambrosia]

It might be unintuitive about how to handle calculations with Magick (aside of, yes, boosting your mind with the Mind sphere and such), but the actual solution is hinted at by a certain Technocratic Sphere that the VAs can also learn: The Data Sphere.

I.e. 'Correspondence'.
It makes sense, too - if you consider how calculations happen, you can see it as making a connection (Correspondence/Data) from the original Problem to the Solution, through a series of changes (Entropy).

So it's either simply just the Data/Correspondence Sphere (To essentially establish a...

[Ambrosia]

Only managed to listen to the first half (Which is like 50 minutes already :P) of it yesterday, but it's quite interesting so far to hear how the book came about.

A thing that quite got my attention was, that originally way more books were planned for M20 - but they decided to, for now, stick only to the Kickstarter and already revealed Onyx Path scheduled books, because they have no idea when WW 'will take Mage back' in order to work on M5.

[Ambrosia]

To me it more sounds like it starts off very similiarly to...Bloodlines 1 :P
Also as Heavy Arms said, the general premise isn't too different from a couple other stories. I don't think they thought of Skyrim when coming up with this at all....

[Ambrosia]

Not without the Lightning Calculator merit I can't! D: DON'T JUDGE MEEEEE...

[Ambrosia]

...I would also give it a +3 difficulty to use in the heat of combat if it had to be fiddled with that much per shot >_>
Which is, really, the reason I never quite can settle with that kind of explanation for the whole "Why does the lasergun not work in the hands of a sleeper" paradox (Lower p paradox). It would make a horrible thing to use even for the enligtened, in the cases it was seemingly made for....

[Ambrosia]

Blades are under way, way less regulation than guns, usually. Even a smallish knife can help a lot.
Also, saying that regulations mean nothing to Mages is...quite broad strokes for a couple of reasons, in my opinion.

For one, just because you are a Mage does not mean that you suddenly stop believing in sleeper or community laws. You don't just stop having morals or..well...let go of everything you were before. Be it having a job, friends or your actual family. Even if the Mage cares less about the law, it might even simply boil down to the Mage not wanting folks they *know*...

[Ambrosia]

That and, in the case of vampires (and realistically all kinds of undead), normal ranged weapons deal bashing damage - and Vamps at least, after soak, half the bashing that makes it past that soak automagically. You deal your lucky, MASSIVE 8 successes bashing damage, the vamp soaks 3, and after halving you are left with....3 that make it through. And that was a really good hit.

Bladed lethal melee weapons are actually the *best* mundane weapon against them - save for stuff like flamethrowers, Dragonsbreath shells or generally aimed shots to the head (which is an optional rule, if...

[Ambrosia]

This actually has been hinted at in the M20 corebook, in the HIT Mark section:

"One short-lived version even incorporated the
sentience of mind-wiped rival mages, but that experiment proved
disastrous for everyone involved."

I'm glad God & Monsters provides the (insane) stats for the leftover Atlas Units tho. They are indeed monsters.

EDIT:
I also have to say, I love Tiberus.
We finally get an example concept of a technocratic familiar, and he's one with a bit of backstory and interesting personality to boot....

[Ambrosia]

From what I'm reading, it's really more of a gradient of severity.
In strong cases the "Alters" (Which seems to be the term for the alternate identities) indeed compartmentalize memories and sense of time away from the 'original' personality - with the orginal initially not even being aware of the Alters - so the Hollywood cliche of not remembering what happened while an alternate personality was at the front actually happens in some cases.
It needs to be said however that, as you said, the Hollywood cliche displays the change of personality as too 'A completely different...

[Ambrosia]

My pleasure Even if I reacted a biiiit late because, well, timezones.

Also, that image find is *awesome*!

[Ambrosia]

Yeah, I think it was 2x XP per Merit/Flaw point.

Howeverrrr....as an ST, it should be highly regulated when and if a merit or flaw can be bought. Same goes for backgrounds - some can come and go through RP without XP, but it's initiated by the player and more a Downtime in-between thing, it's best to be strict - they need a good reason and explanation. The XP cost matters less than that.

[Ambrosia]

Amusingly enough, Vampires trying to destroy all the modern infrastructure and economy would make them run face-first into two radically opposing groups that don't have Vampires (primarily) in their sights, but would immediately label them as Enemy #1:

The Technocracy and...Pentex. Frickin' Pentex.

The Technocracy itself is pretty much the force that dug humanity out of the Dark Ages and into modern civilization (definitely with certain Vampires aiding the effort quite a lot through their own methods, big and small, once they realized what kind of power it meant for themselves)....

[Ambrosia]

You keep on adding the images as attachments
Upload them to some hoster (imgur for example), and then in your post simply add the images by URL only - don't have them be grabbed and attached.

[Ambrosia]

This accounts for long stabbing motions, really. Not so much a wide swing of a large weapon, nor somebody getting very close with a knife. (Though the latter is simulated by a certain Dirty Fighting technique roll, which one needs to use for that case)

That and while the rules acknowledge bobbing and weaving, they also say "Dodging requires a certain amount of room to move. If you’re in a tight doorway, it’s pretty hard to dodge."...

[Ambrosia]

Er. Wrong, they know they are mucking about with reality. They *know* they are Enlightened.
It was the Technocratic Union that even came up in-game with the term "Consensus" for the push of sleepers on reality, *not* the Traditions.

I think what you are referring to is 90% of the Technocrats not literally thinking that what they do is actually 'Magic', but I refer to my post up higher in regards to that....