[Mage: The Awakening v1.9] Magic System Supplemental Rules

 ((Out of Character (OOC):

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

Mage: The Awakening v2 – “The Fallen World Chronicle”
Rules Supplement for Mage II: The Dethroned Queen
First Draft by Chronicle Storyteller Jerad Sayler on 22 Oct 2015
Version 0.1

II.             Magic Supplemental Rules

a.    Attribute and Skill Caps

•           A mage cannot use magic to bolster any Attribute or Skill beyond what their Gnosis allows.  Until Gnosis 6 they are capped at a max of 5 points in any attribute or skill.  The fragile human patterns simply cannot take any more perfecting until more of their soul has transcended.

•           Spells Effected (not a complete list) – Honing the Form (Life 3), Supreme Honing (Life 4), Muscle Memory (Life 2), Supreme Muscle Memory (Life 3), Augment the Mind (Mind 3), Supreme Augmentation (Mind 4), Gain Skill (Mind 2), Supreme Gain Skill (Mind 3).

•           Spells that boost rolls associated with a skill or attribute is not the same thing as boosting the attribute or skill and can augment past the cap but are similarly limited to no more than +5 for characters under Gnosis 6 and are usually capped at the Mage’s understanding of the Arcana being utilized for the spell.


•           Boosts to dice rolls fall into five categories, each is capped by Gnosis’s limits on Attributes and Skill.  Each stack with each other.  So no roll should get higher than 30 until the mage reaches Gnosis 6.

-          Perfecting Skills and Attributes – Actually boosts Skills and Attributes and all derived advantages are similarly re-calculated.

-          Boosting Rolls – abilities that boost certain types of rolls rather than a Skill or Attribute.  These may or may not be tied to Attributes and Skills.

-          Circumstantial Bonuses – The situation may be favorable. Or unfavorable and magic can help make that happen. One specific subset of Circumstantial Bonuses is using Yantras when casting spells. 

-          Equipment Mods – Mundane or supernatural items and equipment provide their own bonuses to getting things done.

-          Dice Tricks – Manipulating luck or having an almost rote-action level of training allows the user to take advantage of the 9 again, 8 again, and Rote dice tricks.  Magic of course can also provide these benefits.

b.   Augmenting Spell Tolerance

•           Spells that effect Spell Tolerance without boosting Stamina no longer function and may be sold for a full refund.  Items lose this ability and may be re-tooled for experience buy-backs in order to normalize what is already in play. (Affects spells such as Augment the Soul (Prime 3) or Fulgore’s Knotwork (Prime 3).

•           Since Spell Tolerance is directly related to Stamina, both cap at 5 until Gnosis 6 with or without magical augmentation.  Starting at Gnosis 3 a mage can combine two effects into one spell, these are counted on a 1:1 basis with the Spell Tolerance they occupy in a person’s pattern.

•           Imbued items that suffuse a mage’s pattern count against spell tolerance and each spell effect counts for ½ a spell tolerance slot as half the spell resides in the item that provides the magic.  Combined spells cannot be added to items to further optimize them.

c.    Spell Tolerance in Items

•           Items now have their own Spell Tolerance for items imbued into them, enchanted by, or affected by magic.  If spells are maintained in the pattern of the materials it counts.  Spells with a duration of Lasting do not count against Spell Tolerance.  Spells that boost an items durability or size are capped but also increase the Spell Tolerance of the item.

•           How many spells you can place on an item is a function of their density and size.  There is a limited amount of metaphysical “room” that a spell construct must occupy.  Spell Tolerance is based on an item’s Structure Rating which is adding the Durability rating to the Size rating.

•           Spells cast into items only occupy ½ Spell Tolerance slot on the item in which they are enchanted (creating Enchanted, Enhanced, or Imbued items).  Temporary spells cast on items count as using 1 Spell Tolerance slot.

•           As with living patterns, you can choose to overload an item and put more spells upon it then it can hold without the spells interfering with each other.  Each spell cast on it above its Spell Tolerance reduces the effective potency of each spell by 1 and all rolls with the items bonuses or spells suffer a -1.

•           With all the benefits items grant they also have an obvious drawback: items can be destroyed.  If an item at full capacity than any time it takes a structural damage the owner has to choose which spell is also destroyed.  (Example: Seraph hits Casstiel’s Amulet (Durability 5, Size 1, and Structure 6) and does 6 damage.  This overcomes the durability and inflicts 1 point of structure damage.  The amulet only has 4 spells cast on item which take up only 2 of the items Spell Tolerance slots.  The amulet can take up to 4 structure damage before the spells are also destroyed.

•           As with living patterns, you can choose to overload an item and put more spells upon it then it can hold without the spells interfering with each other.  Each spell cast on it above its Spell Tolerance reduces the effective potency of each spell by 1 and all rolls with the items bonuses or spells suffer a -1.

•           Certain items such as Silver Ladder Shards and Platonic Exemplars have higher Spell Tolerance than normal items.  Ask your Storyteller to provide this mechanic.

d.   Starting Merits and Gnosis

•           Starting Merits (of which a new Characters get 10 Merit points instead of 7) can no longer be used to purchase increasing starting Gnosis.  It actually is most cost effective to buy tiered Merits.