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[Ambrosia]

I think that was the point
You 'only' need to do those things. Read: It's not possible.

And yes, only constructs with a human soul (which can theoretically be, mind you, artificially created with the Spirit sphere..) can Awaken.
Also yes, The Matriarch of MECHA was created by fusing two Iteration X Sisters to create the AI....

[Ambrosia]

Very yes. For Mage and Changeling both. Essentially the gamelines that are traditionally 'harder to get into' or seem to have a rather untraditional theme....

[Ambrosia]

Yeah, a single enemy as a Boss is seriously hard to pull off in Werewolf, simply because of how much of a set of meatgrinders a Garou pack is.

In orde to get a boss fight, you either have to use

1) A HUGE BOSS ENEMY that is literally powerful enough to cause devastation to a whole area (And is a good climax to a combat-endgame Chronicle)

2) LOTS of enemies - we are talking Pack vs. Pack or First Teams vs. Pack here, or a powerful enemy with a lot of minions, going for a more 'epic' boss battle.

3) An enemy that cannot be beaten through violence....

[Ambrosia]

Yeah. I never quite GOT why Mind isn't a pattern sphere officially - just like Spirit it is treated as one ever so often, and it makes sense; Minds are a specific metaphysical thing that *exists* as a sort of pattern in the mage lore. They can be moved between other patterns, can be created, could be put into a mystical vase for storage...you get the idea That's pretty pattern-like....

[Ambrosia]

Aaactually, no it does not
The Mind sphere affects minds. Which means the target of the effect in question (the mind), as well as the result of the effect (Controlling a mind) are both within the sphere's description - and thus, in order to use it on a mind, you do not have to lock it in or have to combine it with Life.
See the rule regarding 'Spells that use the pattern sphere that is the same as the pattern type of the target' not requiring other pattern spheres or locking. HDYDT also shows examples of this without any other pattern being necessary. The Mind is never treated as...

[Ambrosia]

It matter less (somewhat) *what* you use on a pattern, but what pattern you want to use it on

Spells that use the pattern sphere that is the same as the pattern type of the target (say, shapeshifting them), or spells that should stay in one location need no locking, or sphere combinations.

You mention Time. Aging somebody with time requires Time+Life. This isn't locking, but a standard requirement for pulling off something like that; Time (aging ability) plus target pattern sphere (What kind of thing to age).

Likewise, and this is an example of locking,...

[Ambrosia]

Humh. That's news to me. I don't think Primium causes everything around you to acquire a sort of permadox. At least I don't recall anything like that from the books.

They are hypertech through and through, like a literal full-body cyborg would be. Granted, on the character stats provided you see no special gadgets that use spheres, but it is, I think, a pretty good assumption that more often than not, their sensory systems come equipped with sphere-involving enhancements, their plasma cannons (as written in Revised, I think) probably use forces, and they*are* able to use 'hypertech...

[Ambrosia]

Depends on the St and scene, I guess, but normally I'd say for each character. The randomness would somewhat account for different placements, things in between, etc.
Though, if there are are really a lot of characters about, and it's a combat scene you don't want to slow down too much, one roll for all would work - with individual soaks of course.

[Ambrosia]

Amusingly enough, HIT Marks have no Permadox whatsoever. So the rules on all that aren't even consistent, and pretty much geared towards PCs..

[Ambrosia]

It's dice of damage,and there is indeed a blast area. Lemme wrap up another table with that detail.
EDIT: Added to first post instead....

[Ambrosia]

Mage 20th has a big list of various explosive devices.

It's dice of damage,and there is indeed a blast area. Lemme wrap up another table with that detail:

Name	Blast Radius*	Damage	Burn**
Concussion Grenade	3	8B	No
Fragmentation Grenade	3	12L	No

...

[Ambrosia]

I highly disagree. Just because "AI" is being tossed around as a marketing gimmick term a lot lately for Deep-Learning systems does not mean that Mind 5 suddenly isn't required anymore to create a full-fledged, self-aware concience.

Or put in other words, we still don't understand how the brain actually works. We still don't understand how thought processes exactly happen, or even how to define intelligent sentience or how self-awareness works. The brain literally remains the most complex object we know of in the entire universe.
And the most complex neural setup we...

[Ambrosia]

Usually healing is all about repairing damage to the body - and I would presume that, the way that most artificial constructs are set up, the Life Pattern is held merely in a sort of container or central component inside the purely artificial body.

So I'd say, yes, healing simply requires Matter in the case of an artificial, completely non-biological construct. However, this comes with cons as well:
To heal, you *need* to use the matter sphere, or resort to rather classical feats of mechanical repair - there is no automatic healing over time. Every little bruise you get over...

[Ambrosia]

It always depends on what the mage has to do to get the effect. Stuff like that is absolute GOLD for a Mage who does not need a tool anymore for the effect - just take a syringe with something harmless, stick it in, silently cast a Life effect.
But someone like a young Verbena who has to do some chants and dances to heal somebody is going to have a hard time hiding the fact.

But, yes, Mages who do not depend too much on ritualistic Magic are able to hide as much behind mundane technology as the Technocrats....

[Ambrosia]

The thing is, that would protect your character from being affected by Time effects (Being slowed down, tossed through time, being aged, etc.), but it would not stop somebody from casting their perceptions back in time to a place and just seeing you doing things - like somebody can already see you in the 'now' by standing nearby.

You will have to use the spheres you would normally use to hide yourself from detection in the 'now' ( Mind to be ignored etc.) and tie them to the Time sphere to make those protections only affect those people that look back in time, while those around you...

[Ambrosia]

I think the wonderful tingle-inducing promotional header used in the M20 Kickstarter (Part of the text on page 40 of M20) hits the nail on the head from an actual in-game perspective of one who has moved into the meta:

"We’re all mages, we Awakened Ones. Tradition wizards and
Technocrats, Mad Ones and Fallen Ones, and all the “ones”
in between who refuse to choose a side in our demented little
War. We’re ALL fucking mages. Many refuse that title, or deny
it to others, but that’s what we are: priest-kings holding the
keys to reality."

[Ambrosia]

It highly depends on the Tradition, and the Mage in question, when it comes to literally considering themself 'Mages'.

For example, the Order Of Hermes - those guys definitely consider themselves *the* Mages.The quintessenital Mages, so to speak, heh. The Verbena most certainly consider themselves 'Witches' - and those that do not at least consider themselves Priests and Pristesses to some old gods. The Dreamspeakers - at least most of them - definitely consider themselves Shamans and Spirittalkers.

However as for the rest of them? It really depends on the character in...

[Ambrosia]

From what I've read so far, the Handbook is definitely a really really good primer for helping new players into the mechanics of Wraith.

For the non-backers (or those who haven't read it yet), it's divided into three chapters, one for playing Wraiths, one for playing the Shadow, and one for the StoryTeller in regards of, well, how to handle storytelling, the consequences of certain Wraith concepts and in-game policies of the underworld, and player guiding.


The Wraith chapter pretty much goes through all the important bits for new Wraith players - starting with...

[Ambrosia]

Well, Forces 5 just blows it over the top. One thing that is kind of unique to the Forces sphere is, that while the higher levels (like any other sphere) enable new kinds of effects, the lower levels also increase in potency - with Forces 2 you can telekinetically lift a human. With 5 you can lift....really, really, really big things. But it's the same Forces 2 effect.The same goes for the destructive properties (although damage-wise, the normal table always applies - just not the area)....

[Ambrosia]

It's - scarily enough - not many different things that are needed.

Ingedient 1: Forces 5
Ingredient 2: Time 4
Ingredient 3: Being a Marauder whose twisted, insane paradigm of being 'Just a normal guy, training, really guys' constantly charges a Forces Shield (Damage absorption of various kinds of forces) and Forces-based Strength (So much that everything pretty much dies in one punch and the successes are high enough to cause destruction in the landscape - Forces 5 is excellent at that.) and Time 1 (Sense of excellent timing) and Time 3 (Insane speed) through literally...