[2E] What to do with Mana?

[wyrdhamster]

I plan to use powerfull Seer of Paternostern in game. Of course, he has Pralacy of Father, so he can have A LOTS of Mana. What devilish things characters can do with a lot of Mana too spend in one turn to his enemies?

[logos]

Cancel a whole bunch of reach. Mana only has two purposes during spellcasting: cancelling reach, and powering spell effects. For example, the 2 dot Mind invisibility spell takes a point of mana.

There are also attainments that you can use it on. Off the top of my head, the 4 dot Mind attainment lets you turn 3 successes on a social or mental roll into an exceptional success for 1 mana.

That said, the biggest dump is overreach cancellation. I'd first cast a praxis spell with a big dice pool to ensure I could choose the steadfast condition for the exceptional success, and then I would go to town with spell factors and reach on my next spell, because (because of steadfast) it won't fail. You'd use mana to reduce the paradox pool to a chance die, and steadfast to turn the 1 die you get to roll (due to the negatives placed on the spell by increased potency, scale, and duration) into a success.

Of course, if you do this you will easily fry your players, unless they're really high level. It's easy to forget, but you're not in competition with your players. You're telling a story together.

[Tessie]

Just a bit of a side note but one out of ten spells cast that way will fail if you don't keep more than one die left for the casting. Which would seriously suck considering that you probably used up some Mana and at least two turns. Steadfast-abuse is praxis in my group.

[SoulGambit]

Steadfast changes a chance die into a normal die instead of its can't fail effect. The 9-again boon combined with Steadfast would work.

[logos]

Just a bit of a side note but one out of ten spells cast that way will fail if you don't keep more than one die left for the casting. Which would seriously suck considering that you probably used up some Mana and at least two turns. Steadfast-abuse is praxis in my group.

You just have to leave 1 die. You roll a chance die only when you leave 0 dice.

[wyrdhamster]

So consensus is to cast with highest possible Reach effect for most powerful spell and use all Mana on lowering Paradox to Chance Die? ( And add Arcanum Attainments when possible ? )

[WHW]

Other than spells, having tons of mana might change your daily behavior patterns. You can Pattern Restore at your leisure; not only wounds, but things like sickness, headaches, flu, anxiety attacks, love, strong emotions. You also get to dump all this mana on Mage Sight, too.

[Tessie]

You just have to leave 1 die. You roll a chance die only when you leave 0 dice.

Paradox, though. Unless you willingly release it.

[logos]

Paradox, though. Unless you willingly release it.

I'm not sure I understand. The only way for paradox to interfere with a spell is precisely when you release it. If you choose to contain, you take bashing damage according to paradox roll/wisdom successes, and if there are paradox successes left over you receive a paradox condition. None of this affects the spell being cast. If you choose to release the paradox, then paradox successes get subtracted from spell casting successes (possibly leading to failure), but I see no reason why steadfast shouldn't be able to change that kind of failure into a single success as well.

[Tessie]

Isn't it the other way around, that you release paradox so it won't interfere with your spell casting (but does with the spells functionality at the ST's discretion)? Don't have time to look it up in the book. And I also think chance die on spell casting rolls are automativally downgraded to failure.

[WHW]

I don't remember anything about chance die being auto failure for spells. Anything past -5 is auto failure, but before that, Chance Die is a fair game.
Released Paradox of 1 will give you -1 to spellcasting roll, and will do something paradoxy to the subject of the spell or do something about your Reach.
Containing the Paradox will just do some Bashing damage to you, so unless it provokes Wound Penalties, it won't take away your spellcasting dice.

[Tessie]

Meh. That's what I get for posting without double checking the books. But I can add that Steadfast affects chance die rolls differently from normal rolls: They upgrade the chance die to a single die.

[Elfive]

A single die isn't enough to cast reliably. You need about 3.

[lnodiv]

Isn't it the other way around, that you release paradox so it won't interfere with your spell casting (but does with the spells functionality at the ST's discretion)?

No, that's backwards. Containing Paradox inflicts no penalty on your roll. Releasing inflicts the penalty and creates anomalies.

Meh. That's what I get for posting without double checking the books. But I can add that Steadfast affects chance die rolls differently from normal rolls: They upgrade the chance die to a single die.

Which is exactly why they're saying to leave 1 die in the pool, so they can use Steadfast normally.

[Falcon777]

A single die isn't enough to cast reliably. You need about 3.

I find that 5 is far more reliable.