Tome of the Pentacle on DTRPG

[Isator Levi]

Book = Meh.

Can you elaborate?

[totalgit]

Its an interesting read when im on the toilet but i wont be using 99% of it.

[Isator Levi]

Charming.

Do you have any issues that you could express in a bit more detail concerning it?

[ArcaneArts]

Charming.

Do you have any issues that you could express in a bit more detail concerning it?

It would probably be more profitable to not engage with a shitpost.

[Isator Levi]

I feel as though Paramibo and what it provides for not merely expanded Mage Sight but expanded options for Supernal summoning really has massive implications for the potential scope of Mysteries. It's the kind of thing that does kind of suggest that just about anything can be on the table, that there is little to nothing that might not have some kind of exception somewhere.

Come to that, I wonder at the potential of one or more mages whose Obsession is with the subject of how and why such phenomena can be so localised. If nothing else, I think it would be interesting to come up with a background detail of a few hypotheses for why the supernatural qualities of the world can end up so... atomized.

Also, Adamantine Arrow was one of the first books for the game I got, and its opening fiction left a strong impression, so seeing the Manticore show up again in this context is compelling. I wouldn't necessarily assume it says anything about that fiction being canonized, but I'd still wonder if its place there could be read as where other Arrows might have encountered it or where it could have ended up after that negotiation.

[Primordial newcomer]

In one of the stories, a mage goes back to a time before a rival mage's awakening and kill him. I though upon the moment of awakening, it's as if the mage was always that way?

[MorganG]

In one of the stories, a mage goes back to a time before a rival mage's awakening and kill him. I though upon the moment of awakening, it's as if the mage was always that way?

I believe it's that the mage was always going to Awaken at a certain time. Reality is rewritten so that the Awakening is added to the timeline but not that they were Awakened from birth.

[Satchel]

In one of the stories, a mage goes back to a time before a rival mage's awakening and kill him. I though upon the moment of awakening, it's as if the mage was always that way?

I believe it's that the mage was always going to Awaken at a certain time. Reality is rewritten so that the Awakening is added to the timeline but not that they were Awakened from birth.

Per the Awakening chapter of SoS:

Eventually, every Acanthus interested in Awakenings wonders why she can’t just divine who will Awaken or forge a Destiny in someone to attract a Watchtower. Unfortunately for the millions of mages who’ve made coaxing others Awake their lives’ endeavor over history, it doesn’t work like that. Look into the future of a Prospect even minutes before their Awakening starts, and it will show only the life of a Sleeper or Sleepwalker. Cast a Knowing spell to pick out those in a crowd fated to struggle against the world and it won’t grant knowledge of which one will succeed. Conversely, mages who go back in time and view the future of Sleepers who will be Awakened in the present do see the Awakening on their subjects’ timelines. In fact, Awakening usually reduces a person’s temporal sympathy with her Sleeper past to Weak or, in some cases, breaks it entirely.

According to the Orders’ understanding of Supernal metaphysics (see p. 134) Awakening’s unpredictability is because of the Watchtower’s “location” in the Supernal Realm itself, and because successfully Awakening involves changing the Supernal so that the new mage was always going to Awaken at this point. From the moment a mage Awakens, her entire future changes, the new possibilities of magic rewriting her destiny

[Obsidian Pharaoh]

So I just got the book. While I didn't finish everything yet, I absolutely loved the lore and history parts. Special mention goes to all the stuff about Alexandria; kudos to the writers for making my city so cool. Some other parts that also stuck out to me:

• More than a few Legacy attainments are pretty lenient on Reach rules, with some having permanently active effects at no Reach cost and others seemingly disregarding Duration altogether. Special mention goes to the "Genius" version of the Perfected Adepts, who not only have permanent Body Control, but seem to have all the Reach effects for it as well, all as a second attainment. I'm not sure if this is a new direction the writers are going in due to the core rules being restrictive, or is just due to not grasping said rules well enough. (No offense is meant here, of course.)
• Diamante was revealed to be a Moros, which actually makes sense given her Shadow Name, but I always assumed she was a Mastigos with at least Space 3 and a bit of Forces based on her abilities in the Fallen World Anthology and the core.
• Outis's backstory, Path, and Arcana were all changed from the core, which I'm not a huge fan of. I liked it more when he literally never existed anymore. Also, he has a Prelacy despite not being a Seer and no dots in Time despite being an Acanthus, both of which are points I'm assuming will be later updated.

[lbeaumanior]

So I just got the book. While I didn't finish everything yet, I absolutely loved the lore and history parts. Special mention goes to all the stuff about Alexandria; kudos to the writers for making my city so cool. Some other parts that also stuck out to me:

• More than a few Legacy attainments are pretty lenient on Reach rules, with some having permanently active effects at no Reach cost and others seemingly disregarding Duration altogether. Special mention goes to the "Genius" version of the Perfected Adepts, who not only have permanent Body Control, but seem to have all the Reach effects for it as well, all as a second attainment. I'm not sure if this is a new direction the writers are going in due to the core rules being restrictive, or is just due to not grasping said rules well enough. (No offense is meant here, of course.)
• Diamante was revealed to be a Moros, which actually makes sense given her Shadow Name, but I always assumed she was a Mastigos with at least Space 3 and a bit of Forces based on her abilities in the Fallen World Anthology and the core.
  
• Outis's backstory, Path, and Arcana were all changed from the core, which I'm not a huge fan of. I liked it more when he literally never existed anymore. Also, he has a Prelacy despite not being a Seer and no dots in Time despite being an Acanthus, both of which are points I'm assuming will be later updated.

These (bolded text) are the most annoying parts for me, where do we send requests for correction? Inconsistent Legacies in particular make me twitch...

[Satchel]

These (bolded text) are the most annoying parts for me, where do we send requests for correction? Inconsistent Legacies in particular make me twitch...

A link to the errata collection form was provided on the purchase page of DTRPG when you bought the book. The form is closed now, and while I can't say for sure when it closed, it opened two weeks ago and likely ran for at least a week.

[Johnny Awesome]

Why is it already closed? Maybe they want to update before accepting more errata.

I'm also in the camp that is annoyed by all the uber Legacies. Almost every Legacy ever published for 2e breaks the creation rules. It's ridiculous.

[Dark Archon]

Okay, so I finally got the time to read the book, and I have pretty mixed feelings about it.

1. First chapter is both most interesting and most disappointing for me. Awakening now finally has a timeline updated to 2e, and that is very cool, but after reading it I was left with feeling that it is more of a collection of story hooks about ancient past than actual history of Awakened. I understand the wordcount issues and need to wrap in all the stuff mentioned in other books, but I just wanted more of historical events - Great Cults rising and falling, changes in Orders over time, stuff like that. I also can't help but notice that some regions don't really show up in history as much as I felt they should, like East Asian region. And again - I know this is supposed to be more about the Pentacle, but still... Lost Orders are totally cool, though, even though I felt Tremere entry is basically repetition of their N&A stuff.
2. Second chapter is meh, IMO. I felt that global overview doesn't give me enough information about how mages of those regions meaningfully differ from each other. Knowing that Pentacle/Seer conflict is still hot in Russia and that USA mages are tribalistic doesn't give me enough to really make Russian and American Awakened feel different when they are in the same scene. I would've appreciated overlook of local mystical doctrines and praxes influencing local willworkers more. Examples of Consilia are better, but some Mysteries inside feel too small for whole Consilium to be founded on. Maybe I have a different sense of scale, but I felt that New York Mystery is kind of Mystery Consilia are found around. Still, there are some neat ideas which could be expanded to my taste.
3. Third chapter is mix of new stuff (factions, more factions!) and old stuff which was in need of being re-stated (Great Rights, mage diplomacy, Convocations, duels). First part is great, I just love how Orders become even deeper with faction interactions and nuances of politics. Second part needs to be there, I understand.
4. Fourth chapter is cool. It spells out many things which needed to be said explicitly, and tables of Aspirations and Obsessions are invaluable.
5. Finally, fifth chapter is great as well, giving a full-fledged setting to play in. I think this chapter is what was needed to be in the corebook - IMO, one in-depth setting is better than five more shallow ideas, and I personally know some GMs who just struggled to start their first Mage game. This is what they needed back then. Reading this chapter inspired me to finally start condensing notes on my Praga Mystica into coherent whole; I hope to publish it in a few months of work.

So overall, this book contains great stuff, stuff which needed to be there, and stuff which is just meh. I feel some things could've been done more to my taste, but it is definitely not the bad book. Great thanks to everyone who worked on it, I really enjoyed reading it, I will definitely use material from it, and I hope I'll expand on some of it in the future.

[sufferian]

And nothing in the gospels is historically accurate and all non-Christian attestations are from after his supposed death.

This is an incredibly misleading statement. The gospels, but also the rest of the New Testament, particularly Paul's letters, are incredibly important and useful historical documents. And many texts we use as evidence for the existence and activity of particular historical figures were written after their death.

[sufferian]

The only thing which lives a bit of a sour taste in my mouth is Marduk's presentation even though it is really cool, as I am a Hunter fan and Marduk is a consistent mythological symbol of the Vigil, yet making it into an actual embodiment of the Vigil and tying it to the Nibiru shouldn't be difficult considering its nature is left undefined (and the Exarchs are, after all, big fans of keeping humanity alive. I wrote way too much about this concept specifically myself)

I took Marduk's mysterious nature to be another nod to something from old WoD--like the old man by the shore of the abyss looking like Voormas--in that he seems like a Solar Exalted, which was implied to be how Hunters in Reckoning got their powers from the Rods and Cones. I haven't read Ruins of Ur though, so I might be completely off base.