[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] Basics of Spellcasting

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

                The Basics of Spellcasting

My comments are in yellow and are regarding my reviews of the system and my own personal/Storyteller's perspective recommendations for use in our Chronicle. Sources: Spellcasting, as written, is straight out of the advanced "beta" version of Mage: The Awakening 2nd edition.

 

Additional explanation is in this font, when it helps drive the concepts home.

Mages channel what they know of reality and the Mysteries into the world to disrupt the Lie. These new realities take the form of spells, and crafting them into being is casting, or spellcasting. The mage imagines each part of the spell in her mind before she casts it, envisioning the Imago of the spell. The Imago is the mental representation of the end result of the spell including all its effects and factors. Without the Imago, the mage is incapable of fully envisioning what she wants to impart into the world, her will incapable of imprinting the truth without a defined Pattern. 

Improvised Spells

In the most simple form of spellcasting, a mage builds an Imago on the fly, responding to a need by drawing on her knowledge of the Arcana and the symbols of her Path. This kind of spell —  improvised magic — is the most common form, as opposed to the personal specialties of a Praxis or the formalized learning of a Rote. When casting the spell, the mage creates a dice pool based on her Gnosis and her dots in the highest Arcanum included in the spell. The mage must decide what she wants her spell to achieve before rolling, and a single success means the spell is cast to her specifications.

The magic casting dice pool is modified by Yantras and spell factors. The penalties to spellcasting can exceed the normal –5 penalty cap to dice pools. In cases where the penalty would reduce the dice pool beyond 0 — and thereby a chance die — by an additional –5 even after including bonuses from Yantras, the spell is too complex for the mage to cast and it automatically fails. The mage may need to spend Mana as part of spellcasting. Improvising a spell using a Common or Inferior Arcanum costs one point of Mana, in addition to any other Mana the spell may require.

Spellcasting results in the following general effects, but each of these can be increased through changing spell factors or risking Paradox:

Reaching

The mage can utilize different techniques to get more out of her base spell after she determines the spell effects and the level of each Arcanum involved. Most changes affect the dice pool as either bonus or penalty dice, but other, more profound effects require the mage to risk incurring a Paradox by Reaching.  Mages can Reach to move from a Standard to an Advanced spell factor chart, or create specialized effects in certain spells such as increasing damage type on attack spells. Each time she Reaches, she adds dice to the Paradox dice pool based on her Gnosis. A character receives a free Reach — which does not add Paradox dice — per dot of her highest-rated Arcanum that meets or exceeds the spell’s requirement. 

For example a mage with four dots of the Mind Arcanum gains two free Reaches when casting a spell that requires Mind 3.

Yantras

Yantras are a form of magical shorthand which a  mage uses to help her focus on casting a spell. She can use nearly anything — an object, a place, a type of environment, or even a specific set of factions — to focus her will and recall her Imago. Using such tools grants a bonus to the spellcasting dice pool, up to +5 after penalties depending on the specific Yantra and how many she uses while casting her spell. More on Yantras on a feature post.

Praxes

Through dedicated practice or repetitive use of  certain spells, a mage may develop a Praxis. Praxes are spell Imagos the mage has gained special insight into, learning the symbols of the spell by heart. She is more adept at casting these spells, and they shape her growing Gnosis. When casting a Praxis spell, the mage gains an  exceptional success with three successes instead of five. Praxes do not require a point of Mana to cast from Inferior or Common Arcana, but any other Mana costs still apply. A mage gains one free Praxis for every dot of Gnosis, and may purchase more for one Arcane Experience each. The character must be capable of casting the Praxis as an improvised spell.

Praxes do not gain the benefit from the Extemporaneous Affinity Merit.

Rotes

Experienced mages perfect their grasp of spell Imagos over time, learning the complexity of the spell and developing skills to recall and cast it with ease. Masters call these specialized Imagos Rotes, codifying and recording their methods to later teach less experienced mages. Orders teach Rotes to their members using a set of  mnemonic techniques — mudras — to compress, memorize, recall, and cast the spell as quickly and efficiently as improvised spells.

Rotes copied onto physical media using the Prime Arcanum are called Grimoires. Anyone able to cast the improvised version of a spell can use a Grimoire to cast the Rote by following the instructions, though the caster may not use Reach to cast instantly when casting out of a Grimoire, and the ritual casting time is doubled. Casting a Rote from a Grimoire rather than from memory, or casting a Rote she designed herself, gives the mage’s spellcasting dice pool the rote quality. 

 When casting a Rote from memory, using an Order’s recall techniques, the character may use dots in the associated Skill as a Yantra. The character must be free to make the mnemonic gestures to recall the Rote in order to benefit from the Skill bonus. The caster of a Rote is  considered to have five dots in the highest Arcanum used for purposes of how much free Reach she has. In addition, the Signature Nimbus of the caster is indistinct, hiding the caster’s identity unless another mage fully  scrutinizes the spell.

Rotes do not require a point of Mana to cast from Inferior or Common Arcana, but any other Mana costs still apply. The benefits of Rotes do not stack with the benefits of  Praxes. If a mage has the same spell as both a Rote and a Praxis, she must decide at casting which she uses. Rotes may be purchased for one Experience each, and the character must be capable of casting the spell as an improvised spell before purchasing the Rote.

Spell Factors

The previous rules assume the most basic spellcasting aspects; that a spell’s subject is a single, touched individual, and the spell lasts for a short amount of time. A mage can create an Imago, though, for a spell that affects an entire group of people, or an enchantment that lasts an entire day. The elements of a spell — the size or number of subjects — are called spell factors, and the mage can increase them with increasingly difficult spell Imagos.  Potency is a measure of the spell’s power. It determines the extent of the effect of a spell. For example, attack spells use Potency for how much damage is applied. 

Duration- how long a spell lasts. Once the spell’s Duration elapses, the spell ends.

Scale - measure of how large a spell is. It determines how many subjects the spell can affect, the size of an area the spell encompasses, and the size of the largest subject.

Range - how far the spell can be cast. Spells either require the mage to touch her subject, or be in sensory Range of her subject to cast. Mages with two dots in Space or Time may use Attainments to cast on a subject’s past existence, or across the world via sympathetic ties.

Casting Time -  is how long it takes the mage to cast the spell. Mages may gain bonuses for taking longer to cast spells. 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. 

Primary Spel Factor - All spells have a Primary Factor 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. This advancement is voluntary — mages don’t always choose to cast at full power. The primary spell factor can be changed with a Reach. Some spells may use a spell factor more than once —  or example, a spell transforming a truck into an elephant mus account for the Size of both. In these cases, use the largest penalty for each factor.

For example, a Forces spell with a primary spell factor of Duration 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. 

Potency

Potency matters for spells that grant bonuses, impose penalties, or provide graduated levels of effects, such as dealing damage or increasing dot-ratings of traits. The effect of a spell’s Potency is described in the individual spell write-up — each level of Potency increases the spell’s main effect. Each level of Potency beyond the first imposes a –2 penalty to the casting roll. Mages may spend Reach to gain Advanced Potency, which increases the spell’s Withstand ability against dispellation by +2. 

Duration 

Duration is simply how long a spell lasts once cast. Standard spell Durations are measured in turns, while using a Reach to use the  Advanced Duration chart makes the spell last much longer. If a spell would logically have an immediate effect but is cast with Advanced  Duration, the effect recurs at every multiple of the character’s Gnosis-based ritual casting time, until the Duration runs out. 

For example, a Gnosis 1 character’s healing spell with a Duration of a day heals its Potency in Health boxes every three hours. The highest level of the Advanced Duration chart is “indefinite,” meaning the spell lasts until dispelled or the caster cancels it. Moving to indefinite requires  a second Reach, and the caster must also spend a point of Mana.

A Note on Lasting Effects:

Many spells specify that some effects are Lasting, or give the option to create Lasting effects with Reach. Lasting isn’t a Duration, but instead the system term for the persisting after-effects of magic. When a spell ends, look at what it changed, if anything, in the environment. Those are its Lasting qualities.

A fire controlled with a Forces spell continues to burn after the spell ceases to act upon it. Wounds

healed with magic do not reopen when the spell’s Duration ends. 

Scale

The scale of a spell is how large the spell is. Mages must decide when casting whether they are targeting specific subjects or a blanket area of effect. Aimed spells must use area of effect,  centered on wherever the mage aims.

If the mage uses Number of Subjects for Scale, the factor determines how many subjects may be affected and the Size of the largest subject. Once decided, a mage can affect fewer subjects than the scale of her spell permits.

If using Area of Effect for Scale, the factor instead determines how large the area covered by the spell is, applying the spell effect to anyone or anything within. A mage cannot single out specific subjects in the declared space unless she uses the spell Warding Gesture (Fate).

Range

Range determines if the spell requires the mage to touch her subject, or simply be in sensory range to create an effect. Range does not increase incrementally with penalties like other factors. The standard Range factor for all spells is touch/self, meaning that the mage can cast the spell on herself or a subject she touches without any penalties. A mage can target an individual she cannot touch with a self/touch spell by succeeding on an Aimed Spell roll. 

The Advanced Range factor is sensory, meaning that the mage must be able to directly see, hear, or sense her subject. Viewing a subject remotely but in real-time, whether by security camera or magic scrying window, requires an additional Reach. A spell cast with sensory range cannot be dodged by the subject, and does not require an Aimed Spell roll. 

If the mage has the Space Attainment Sympathetic Range or the Time Attainment Temporal Sympathy, she can cast spells without the need to sense her subject. For more details, see those Attainments.

Aimed Spells

A mage can attempt to throw or fire her spell at her subject instead of touching him when casting at standard range. Aimed spells appear as bolts of energy or projections coming from the casting mage, as opposed to spells cast at sensory range which materialize at the point of the subject. The player rolls Gnosis + (highest of Athletics or Firearms) – subject’s Defense. The subject may gain the benefits of cover, and range bands apply; an Aimed spell’s short range is Gnosis x 10, medium is Gnosis x 20, and long is Gnosis x 40. A success means the spell hits her subject as intended, a failure means the spell effect misses its subject. Aimed spell rolls happen after spellcasting rolls and Paradox roll results have been determined, but are reflexive — they happen on the same turn as the spellcasting roll.

Casting Time

Casting time determines how long the mage takes to create her effect. Standard casting takes time, and all spells are ritually cast. The time it takes to cast a ritual spell is determined by the caster’s Gnosis. By taking extra time and extending his ritual, the caster may gain bonus dice —each full interval of casting time grants a die, to a maximum of +5 dice to the roll remaining after all factors are subtracted from it. By using a Reach, a caster may instead cast immediately, in a single turn. Immediate spells cannot gain extra dice from taking extra time, but may take several turns of preparation to use all the Yantras the caster wishes to include. Ritual spells can benefit from teamwork, while an immediate spell cannot.

Withstanding

Before dice are rolled for spellcasting, the caster must consider if her subject can Withstand her magic, as it could affect the dice pool and outcome of the casting. The subject of a spell can always choose not to Withstand a spell, but she must consciously choose to do so as a reflexive action.

If a spell must overcome some aspect of its subject to take full effect, it will list a Withstand rating in its description (usually a Resistance Attribute, but spells themselves Withstand dispellation using the Arcanum rating of the caster’s highest Arcanum used in the spell). Withstood spells reduce their Potency by levels equal to the Withstand rating. If this leaves the spell with no levels in Potency, it still counts as an active spell against spell control but has no further effect. 

Spells with multiple subjects apply their Potency against the Withstand rating of each individual subject, so may take effect against some of them. Each spell in a combined spell is Withstood separately. If a spell has  multiple Withstand ratings (for example, a Withstood spell cast with the Sympathetic Range Attainment) it uses the highest rating, +1 for every additional rating. Characters may only spend Willpower to increase a Resistance Attribute used for Withstanding if they are aware of a spell being cast upon them.

Casting the Spell

Once all dice penalties and bonuses are calculated, including any penalties from Paradox, the player rolls dice. A single success on the casting means the spell effect takes place.