Cauthon's Homebrew Hub

[lbeaumanior]

1. So you can include Utility Attainments when constructing Legacy Attainments. The catch is that it needs to make sense for it to be included - a Space-Primary Legacy's Adept and Master slots make sense to include Everywhere, since every member will have access to that. A Space-optional Legacy can have Everywhere only in the Optional Attainments, since not everyone who learns that Legacy's Primary-Arcana Attainments will have enough Space to access Everywhere.

I should specify that these assumptions are mostly extrapolation - since Sympathetic Range and Temporal Sympathy are both Utility Attainments, and they can be used in Legacy Attainments, its plausible that you can include others that make sense with that spell. There may also be a dev comment somewhere confirming it, but I really don't know on that count.

Got you, so not sure but quite probably as you describe.

2. Attainment Durations are identical to spell Durations. Attainment casting times default to 1 scene, if you don't spend the Reach on Instant Casting. So in your example, your Mental Shield would last one year, since it has five jumps along the Duration chart.

Here is what confuses me. Can you explain to me step by step this part? Where does it say that the duration chart jumps are automatic either for spells? Also can you help me with the duration chart example in the rule book?

STANDARD DURATION

Duration	Dice Penalty
1 turn	None (basic successes)
2 turns	-2
3 turns	-4
5 turns	-6
10 turns	-8

ADVANCED DURATION

Duration	Dice Penalty
One scene/hour	None (basic successes)
One Day	-2
One Week	-4
One Month	-6
One Year	-10

A mage can increase her spell’s various factors, though she does
so at the cost of dice penalties. She can change a spell factor’s
chart from Standard to Advanced with a Reach. All spells have a
primary spell factor of either Potency or Duration. After penalties
have been applied for the desired spell factors, the player may
move the primary factor up its chart a number of steps equal to
the character’s rating in the spell’s highest Arcanum minus one.
For example, a Forces spell with a primary spell factor of Dura-
tion would last for 5 turns when cast by a mage with her Forces
Arcanum rated at 3 and a –2 penalty to her casting roll.

This example makes no sense to me. Where are the 5 turns coming from? If I have Forces 3, with Duration Primary, I can move in the chart up to Arcanum -1, so 3 -1 = 2 steps, am I moving from basic success to 3 turns for free? Do I have then 3 turns here (Arcanum rating times basic successes) and then I take a further -2 to get another 2 turns for a grant total of 5?

There is this post regarding a question about the same on attainments.

When required, the Attainment is also considered to have ac-
quired additional spell factors that would incur a penalty (if cast
as a spell) up to the Attainment’s lowest prerequisite Arcanum.
If the Attainment would require a measurement of its suc-
cesses, it automatically scores a number of successes equal to the
mage’s dots in the highest prerequisite Arcanum.
For example, if a member of a fire-summoning Legacy who
possesses Forces 5 activates her Forces-based Legacy Attainment.
Its primary factor is Potency. The Attainment scores 5 Potency
automatically. If Duration is required, it lasts for three turns (as
per Duration rating with –4 dice penalty). It scores 5 successes.
If the Attainment also harnessed Spirit and the mage possessed
three dots in that Arcanum, the Duration would decrease to
two turns, since the secondary factor uses the lower of the two
ratings.

As per this example in the book, it means that if I have Arcanum 5, Advanced Duration and Potency primary the calculation is 5 minus maximum possible penalty (-4) in the advanced duration chart, for a Week duration. From where are you getting a Year?

[Cauthon]

Here is what confuses me. Can you explain to me step by step this part? Where does it say that the duration chart jumps are automatic either for spells or attainments? Also can you help me with the duration chart example in the rule book?

STANDARD DURATION

Duration	Dice Penalty
1 turn	None (basic successes)
2 turns	-2
3 turns	-4
5 turns	-6
10 turns	-8

ADVANCED DURATION

Duration	Dice Penalty
One scene/hour	None (basic successes)
One Day	-2
One Week	-4
One Month	-6
One Year	-10

This example makes no sense to me. Where are the 5 turns coming from? If I have Forces 3, I can move in the chart up to Arcanum -1, so 3 -1 = 2 steps, am I moving from basic success to 3 turns for free? Do I have then 3 turns here (Arcanum rating times basic successes) and then I take a further -2 to get another 2 turns for a grant total of 5?

There is this http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/mage-the-awakening/1077525-guidelines-for-especially-useful-legacy-attainments?p=1077656#post1077656"]post regarding a question about the same[/URL] on attainments.

So, to make things easier, I recommend using this tool as you read my explanation:

http://www.voidstate.com/rpg/mage-spell-helper/

All of a spell's factors start at "1". That is, if we have a Gnosis 1, Forces 1 Mage trying to cast a Duration-Primary Forces 1 spell, the spell looks like this

Force Spell of Inadequacy
Duration = 1 Turn
Potency = 1
Scale = 1 Target/Area roughly the radius of your outstretched arms
Range = Touch/Aimed
Casting Time = Minimum Ritual Casting Time as dictated by Gnosis, in this case 3 hours

This comes out to a spell that can affect one target, has 1 Potency, took three hours to cast, and lasts a pathetic 1 turn. We cast it with a Dice pool of 2, 1 from Forces and 1 from our Gnosis. We technically had one Reach to spend, but we neglected to do so.

For each "jump" -that is, increase in a factor- for the neumerical factors, there is a penalty. Taking the same spell and trying to make it last longer, we bump Duration up by one jump.

Force Spell of Inadequacy
Duration = 2 Turns
Potency = 1
Scale = 1 Target/Area roughly the radius of your outstretched arms
Range = Touch/Aimed
Casting Time = Minimum Ritual Casting Time as dictated by Gnosis, in this case 3 hours

This comes out to a spell that can affect one target, has 1 Potency, took three hours to cast, and lasts a pathetic 2 turns. We cast it with a Dice pool of 0; 1 from Forces and 1 from our Gnosis, but -2 for increasing Duration by one jump. We technically had one Reach to spend, but we neglected to do so. If we want more Dice, we can add Yantras and increase the Casting Time.

Now our hypothetical Mage gets frustrated and goes off to learn more Forces magic before trying again. He comes back at Gnosis 1, Forces 2, and prepares the same spell as before:

Force Spell of Inadequacy
Duration = 2 Turns
Potency = 1
Scale = 1 Target/Area roughly the radius of your outstretched arms
Range = Touch/Aimed
Casting Time = Minimum Ritual Casting Time as dictated by Gnosis, in this case 3 hours

This comes out to a spell that can affect one target, has 1 Potency, took three hours to cast, and lasts a pathetic 2 turns. HOWEVER, we cast it with a Dice pool of 3; 2 from Forces and 1 from our Gnosis. We also no longer have a penalty from the jump in Duration, because Forces 2 gets us one free jump on the primary factor of Forces spells.

Try taking the the spell being described in the book, and put it into the tool.
1.Assume the hypothetical Mage has Gnosis 2, Forces 3.
2.Their Spell is Duration-Primary. The spell itself only requires Forces 1.
3.Forces is one of their Ruling Arcanum, and it's also their highest Arcanum.
4. They have no other active spells at the moment
5. This spell is neither a Rote or a Praxis for them
6. They have no "additional spellcasting dice"
7. They aren't spending any Willpower
8. The spell isn't Resisted.

As you can see, the tool shows that we can reach 3 Turns without penalty. We have Forces 3, so we have two free jumps. If we want to make the one jump needed to reach the next level, 5 Turns, we take a -2 penalty. We can counteract those lost Dice by increasing the Casting Time, or adding a Yantra.

[lbeaumanior]

Lots of awesome explanations.

Great, that explains things for spells for me, thanks!

But on the attainment side, I think your calculation does not make sense for me yet. Look at the example attainment on the Core book:

When required, the Attainment is also considered to have ac-
quired additional spell factors that would incur a penalty (if cast
as a spell) up to the Attainment’s lowest prerequisite Arcanum.
If the Attainment would require a measurement of its suc-
cesses, it automatically scores a number of successes equal to the
mage’s dots in the highest prerequisite Arcanum.
For example, if a member of a fire-summoning Legacy who
possesses Forces 5 activates her Forces-based Legacy Attainment.
Its primary factor is Potency. The Attainment scores 5 Potency
automatically. If Duration is required, it lasts for three turns (as
per Duration rating with –4 dice penalty). It scores 5 successes.
If the Attainment also harnessed Spirit and the mage possessed
three dots in that Arcanum, the Duration would decrease to
two turns, since the secondary factor uses the lower of the two
ratings.

As per this example in the book, it would mean that if I have Arcanum 5, Advanced Duration and Potency primary the calculation is 5 minus maximum possible penalty (-4) in the advanced duration chart, for a Week duration. From where are you getting a Year on the Mental Shield example a while back?

[Cauthon]

Great, that explains things for spells for me, thanks!

But on the attainment side, I think your calculation does not make sense for me yet. Look at the example attainment on the Core book:





As per this example in the book, it would mean that if I have Arcanum 5, Advanced Duration and Potency primary the calculation is 5 minus maximum possible penalty (-4) in the advanced duration chart, for a Week duration. From where are you getting a Year on the Mental Shield example a while back?

Mental Shield is Duration-Primary. So it has a a duration equal to [Mind]. Mind 5 will have a duration of one year. Potency, as the secondary, would be 3 at Mind 4 and 5. If you spend a Reach to make Potency Primary instead (Don't do this. Potency is largely pointless to this spell, especially as an Attainment) then it changes to Potency 5. It will have a Duration of one week.

Also note that you can split those secondary factor increases amongst Scale and whichever of Duration and Potency wasn't the Primary Factor. As long as the total penalty adds up to equal to or less than the Arcana.

[lbeaumanior]

Mental Shield is Duration-Primary. So it has a a duration equal to [Mind].

Up to here in total agreement.

Mind 5 will have a duration of one year.

Why? That was my example shown there, will it get automatic jumps as per a spell? That I think is the main question.


EDIT: I just realized that I was being a moron, the same link explains what happens here. Thanks Cauthon very cool explanation, the website is extremely helpful.

[lbeaumanior]

Still going for "most broad utility", right? I'll say right now, having Time Attainments really encourages you to take the Fast Spells merit. It's not super useful for Time Attainments, but it is notable for freeing up Reach in your other Arcana track by making Aimed spells more palatable.

Initiate:
Divination with Instant Casting is easily spammable. While the binary Yes/No answers can be frustrating to the player, it keeps it from being a game-breaker. You could bump it up a slot at pick up "accurate answers", but then it's hard on the flow of the game.

Momentary Flux with Instant Casting is fun. It's like the Common Sense merit, but you can spam it and also use it on targets you can touch/Aim at. The mechanical benefits are minimal, unless you bump it up to the Apprentice slot for the Reach effect.

Perfect Timing with Advanced Duration (or Instant Casting, if you don't mind constantly reactivating it) gives you up to [Potency] dice as a bonus to Instant Actions you can spend a turn planning. Since Potency is Secondary for this one, you'll only ever reach a +3 die bonus at Time 4, but that's still nothing to sniff at. Combine it with Fate's Fools Rush In for some nice dichotomy.

Apprentice:
Choose the Thread at Instant Casting is always useful. Combine it with a Rote-er effect from Fate for extra oomph. Like the x Luck spells from Fate, you can bump it up to the Adept slot if the ST allows the "Spellcasting" Reach.

Constant Presence is something I'd want personally, but has debatable utility. It's a balm against the paranoia of not knowing the timeline has been changed, but that's about it. Put it at Advanced Duration, or move it to Disciple to have both Advanced Duration and Instant Casting.

Disciple:
Postcognition with Advanced Duration, the "scrub" Reach effect, and your choice of Temporal Sympathy or Instant Casting. Temporal Sympathy will allow you to check any point in time you can get Sympathy for, while Instant Casting can be spammed but only against short stretches of time. Bump it up one more slot to have your cake and eat it too .

Hung Spell with Instant Casting and Advanced Duration, plus Conditional Duration, can be very useful, but the only real benefit to making it an Attainment is that you don't have to keep a Spell Control slot filled by Hung Spell. Still have to maintain the spell that's being hung though.

Weight of Years at Instant Casting and Aimed is a straight up bruiser spell. Boring, if useful.

Adept:
Acceleration with Time In A Bottle, Advanced Duration and either of the Reach effects is useful. Bump it to Master and you can have both Reach effects.

Shifting Sands with Instant Casting and "Scene Rewind" is incredibly powerful. It's also a go-to power, which makes it somewhat overused.

Past As Present with Time In A Bottle and Advanced Duration makes you skilled in combat and social situations. As long as you can spend a point of Mana every week, it's always on. Predestination depression may start to set in tho.

Rend Lifespan is the same as Weight of Years, only it does more damage. You could add in Time In A Bottle and the Reach effect, since it totals out to one Mana per casting thanks to Attainment rules.

Master:
Prophecy with Instant Casting and Sight Range is similar to Divination. If you move the Reach out of Range and make it Instant Cast, Aimed, and "Social Plan", it's very useful for a social character. Use Time in a Bottle to get Instant Casting, Sight Range, and the Reach effect if you want, but you'll need a lot of Mana if you plan on using it in rapid succession.

Blink Of An Eye with Instant Casting is very useful to craftsmen and anyone else who uses a lot of Extended Actions. Getting money may be irrelevant to a Gnosis 8/9 Mage, but it sure as heck will allow your company to push out products in impossible time frames.

Corridors of Time with Time In A Bottle and Advanced Duration is... of mixed utility. On the one hand, time travel. On the other, only to Unchanged time, and using it in play can be difficult. You could move Reach from Duration over to Temporal Sympathy, but then you need a LOT of Mana to make more than momentary changes. Which, admittedly, may be all you actually need to make.

Temporal Pocket with Time In A Bottle and Advanced Duration is very similar to BoaE. The main difference is that BoaE is for getting stuff done quickly, while TP is for buying yourself time to think, heal, rest, or get non-Extended Action work done.

N/A
Veil of Moments is a trap. You can get some use out of it as a desperation survival tactic, but that's about it. If you use it, put it in the Master slot for the maximum number of exceptions.

Great list.

What do you thing of Shield of Chronos for Disciple level attainment?

[KaiserAfini]

Great list.

What do you thing of Shield of Chronos for Disciple level attainment?

Depends on your Legacy's focus. If there is a tangible reason you might engage in Prophecy Wars (trying to predict or temporaly scry your rivals and vice versa), then its a great pick.

I find it easiest to come up with a core phrase for the Legacy first. Always one phrase, with no commas and no references. When creating their Attainments, philosophy, appearance or anything else, always return to it. If it fits the theme, then its a good inclusion. But if it doesn't, then it might need to be reworked.

Examples from my own ones:

Agathos Kai Sophos: "Efficiency through better planning"
Szary Strażnik: "Spymasters that facilitate prophecy"
Bannerets of Ameretat: "Immortal warriors that mastered fear tactics"
Anima Meccanica: "Solarpunk inventors"
Expeditious Explorers: "World's fastest adventurer archeologist"

[Cauthon]

KaiserAfini is dead in the money. I don't typically have a use for Shield of Chronos, but my Legacies rarely are of a time-based theme.

That said, Advanced Duration and "Fabricate timeline" are both a must, so Disciple minimum

[Cauthon]

I somehow doubt I'm the first to think of this, but Signs of Sorcery mentions that Liches trying to Perfect whole lifeforms have always failed, but you CAN perfect carefully extracted organic components piece by piece. Wouldn't that mean you could gather a bunch of Perfected pieces of human flesh to eventually reconstitute into a whole body? I don't really see many ways to do this without jumping off the deep end of morality and/or sanity, but it doesn't seem like a particularly difficult hurdle to surmount.

[21C Hermit]

I somehow doubt I'm the first to think of this, but Signs of Sorcery mentions that Liches trying to Perfect whole lifeforms have always failed, but you CAN perfect carefully extracted organic components piece by piece. Wouldn't that mean you could gather a bunch of Perfected pieces of human flesh to eventually reconstitute into a whole body? I don't really see many ways to do this without jumping off the deep end of morality and/or sanity, but it doesn't seem like a particularly difficult hurdle to surmount.

I guess they need/want a perfect cathedral, not an arrangement of perfect bricks. Symbolism and all that.

[orathaic]

Also note that you can split those secondary factor increases amongst Scale and whichever of Duration and Potency wasn't the Primary Factor. As long as the total penalty adds up to equal to or less than the Arcana.

Just re-read the book, and i am confused by one thing. But first. You are right you can split up the "additional spell factors that would incur a penalty" between scale and the non-primary spell factor.

You can also apply them to the primary spell factor (if needed, which might be unusual).

What i don't know if how to calculate "the Attainment’s lowest prerequisite Arcanum" - if the attainment only has one prerequisite arcanum, then presumably this is the same as the highest prerequisite arcanum (but you get twice as much spell factors on a dot per dot basis for the primary spell factor).

Scratch that, the example makes perfect sense to me now. 5 steps in primary and 3 steps in penalties to divide how you want is what you get at Arcana 5 dots (the first step is -0, so 3 steps is -4, which is covered by 4 or 5 dots in the arcanum, and the primary just starts at a number of dots equal to the Arcana rating - if you actually count from the 0th step instead of the first one...


So for example, if you had an attainment with Time two prerequisite, and took advanced duration, you would start at 2 steps (1 day) and be able to incur a -2 penalty (bringing the duration up to 1 week).

Also, NB: the primary spell factor is based on the dots the mage possesses (at time of using the attainment) while the extra factors are based only on the attainments pre-requisites.

[Cauthon]

I guess they need/want a perfect cathedral, not an arrangement of perfect bricks. Symbolism and all that.

Aw, I can't assemble a Perfected body piecemeal, then use 1e's Steal Body? Boooo.

Seriously tho, what happens if you (and forgive the graphic psychopathy) skin someone while keeping the victim alive with Life, Perfect their skin, then reattach it? Assuming the spell doesn't get Dissonanced, for the purposes of this unsettling mental exercise.

[21C Hermit]

Aw, I can't assemble a Perfected body piecemeal, then use 1e's Steal Body? Boooo.

Well nothing says you can’t! The result just won’t be what Liches consider a success, as I read it.

Seriously tho, what happens if you (and forgive the graphic psychopathy) skin someone while keeping the victim alive with Life, Perfect their skin, then reattach it? Assuming the spell doesn't get Dissonanced, for the purposes of this unsettling mental exercise.

It’s all homebrew territory, I think. Most obvious answer would be that the ‘patient’ (‘Victim’ is such an ugly word…) gets a Merit or two, or some other weird feature. Ask those vampires over there, who call themselves Dracul or something.

It also sounds like excellent material for crossover. Maybe you ‘just’ trigger a Divergence, or the Divine Fire nukes you and your lab.

[Cauthon]

It also sounds like excellent material for crossover. Maybe you ‘just’ trigger a Divergence, or the Divine Fire nukes you and your lab.

"You think the flawless skin and unbreakable bones justify the ENDLESS AGONY YOU PUT ME THROUGH?! THAT PLUCKING OUT MY EYES IS SOMEHOW JUSTIFIED BY FORCING THEM BACK INTO THEIR SOCKETS WITH THEIR VISION CORRECTED?! Sucks to be you, those anti-spell wards you scribed into my organs seem to have worked out even better than expected!"

And that, kids, is why making your supersoldiers out of pre-existing humans and not from scratch is a rookie mistake.

[lbeaumanior]

Aw, I can't assemble a Perfected body piecemeal, then use 1e's Steal Body? Boooo.

Seriously tho, what happens if you (and forgive the graphic psychopathy) skin someone while keeping the victim alive with Life, Perfect their skin, then reattach it? Assuming the spell doesn't get Dissonanced, for the purposes of this unsettling mental exercise.

I think the reattachment part would fail or require a permanent effect (not a lasting one). On 1e terms, it would be trying to make a spell permanent on a human pattern.

Also if this worked, then bone, blood, flesh, and organ refinement would also be possible, and this would be a Cultivation novel! (that gives me ideas for a Legacy though).



On an unrelated matter... Present as Past as a Master level attainment with reach assigned to Advanced Duration certainly, but what is better for the other reach: Instant Casting, Switch Primary factor to duration (so spend Mana once a year but lower Potency), or a different option?