[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] Creative Thaumaturgy

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

Cast a Deadly Spell: Creative Thaumaturgy

My comments are in yellow and are regarding my reviews of the system and my own personal and Storyteller's perspective recommendations for use in our Chronicle. 

Sources: The following text, as written in grey, is straight out of the advanced "beta" version of Mage: The Awakening 2nd edition.  Additional materials edited from Original Posting on April 29^th 2015 by Dave Brookshaw of Onyx Path Publishing as part of Mage 2nd Ed Open Development.

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

Mage is different to all the other Chronicles of Darkness games in how it treats the characters’ powers. A Mage character sheet doesn’t list individual powers like Werewolf Gifts or Demon Exploits. Its powers aren’t progressive lists like Vampire Disciplines that are purchased in series. The Arcana lists many example spells, but they are examples. The game’s big draw, like its predecessors’ in Mage: The Ascension and Mage: The Awakening 1st Edition, is the ability to come up with thousands of spells and place them within the framework provided by the mechanics.

The Wise aren’t limited to the example spells described with the ten Arcana. Within the bounds of their power, mages can conjure nearly any effect they can imagine. The following provides step by step guidelines for creating your own spells.

Step One: Declare Intent
First and foremost, decide exactly what you’re trying to accomplish with your spell. Don’t focus on how the magic will do what you want for now, just focus on what you want it to do. 

I call it "effects-based spell design."

  

Step Two: Determine Arcanum and Practice
Using the descriptions of the ten Arcana beginning and the descriptions of the thirteen Practices, determine which Arcanum and which Practice the spell falls under. Depending on the intent of the spell, this might be obvious, or there might be several ways you could go about accomplishing your intent. Don’t worry about whether the effect seems “too powerful” for its dot level or “unbalanced” compared to a similar effect under a different Arcanum; part of the fun of playing Mage is coming up with clever, unexpectedly-useful applications of magic.

With regards to balance, Practice and Arcana first.  If a spell requires seems too powerful there is always Reach to be applied to extend its narrative or mechanical effects.

This can be the hardest part of the process, especially for a player. It comes with practice, and in taking the example spells as a starting point rather than an exhaustive list – think of something similar to an existing spell but not quite covered? That can be your basis. A minority of players all but abandon the described spells and think only in terms of the Practices. Most players will be somewhere in-between once they get the hang of it.

 Here is the quick and dirty list of Arcana matches with Purview (this is just off the top of my head):

1. Prime – Supernal Phenomena, supernal spells & magic, Illusions expressed through “Truths,” magical constructs, Mana, Tass, dispellation, phantasms, leylines, divine energies

2. Forces – electromagnetic spectrum, heat, cold, kinetics, gravity, pressure, electricity, fire, radiation, weather, sound, light, magnetism, observable energy

3. Time – Temporal Sympathy, time distortion, witnessing past/future events, divination, time dilation, timing, duration of spells, all time stuff

4. Fate – Chance, luck, destiny, happenstance, probability, prediction, targeting, cause and effect, intuition, curses

5. Mind – consciousness, intelligence, telepathy, neurons, Astral travel, memory, mentalism, hypnotism, mental control, inner demons,

6. Space – Distance, Spatial Sympathy, Contagion, Area of Effect, Teleportation, Portals, far seeing, location, spatial manipulation, perception

7. Life – All living things and their processes, instinct, regeneration, biological control, evolution,

8. Spirit – Gauntlet, Shadow, spirits, ephemera, numina,

9. Death – Souls, ghosts, ectoplasm, undead, darkness, entropy, mortality,

10. Matter – materials, molecular structures, chemistry, supernal materials,

  

Step Three: Determine Effect 
& Cost

The effects of a spell can be incredibly broad, and it’s impossible to categorize every conceivable thing a mage might want to do with a spell, but this section will highlight some of the more common effects, how to adjudicate them, and what they should cost.

Don’t think of the spell examples or practices as a “menu”; any individual spell should have a single, clear effect. If you start designing a spell that deals damage and grants bonus dice and imposes a Condition, you’re probably creating a Combined Spell (covered in a previous blog), not a single spell.

All Mana costs are cumulative. A mage attempting a feat that requires Mana above her Gnosis-derived spending limit may take as many turns as needed before the action to spend the required Mana. If she is interrupted or changes her mind part-way through, Mana spent is still lost.

The ten Arcana list various phenomena as being under their purviews, but like the spells those aren’t strictly speaking exhaustive. If you can think of something we haven’t, put it into one of them. Second edition clarifies a few things in terms of the Arcana’s dividing lines – Death is very clearly the “magic that affects the Soul” Arcanum now, rather than sharing it with spirit, Prime is “truths” not “illusions”, as purely sensory illusions are Forces now. Before each Arcanum goes into the example spells, they also give any special notes and advice on how their purviews work; I have personally noted (often firsthand) a great number of players and storytellers not “getting” how time – the dimension, not the Arcanum – works in Awakening and struggling with improvised spells. That was because principles like “the past is fixed unless altered by magic, the future is constantly changing according to probability (which is itself a function of Fate)” and “if you kill your grandfather you don’t blink out of existence, but everyone will forget who you were” were built into 1st ed’s spells but left to inference. Second edition flat-out tells you about it, and about how Fate interacts with destiny, and how magical sympathy and contagion work with Space.

The Practices are the skeleton behind the Arcana system – thirteen categories for spells (with a few more as the secret business of Archmasters) that every spell falls into. One of the happy results of the new edition’s Reach system for Paradox is that we have none of the warping of Practices relative to their dot-ratings first edition had, and we’ve extended that by removing the “offsets” some Arcana had for different types of subject: Every single Fraying spell is three dots, and Life no longer requires higher dots to cast on animals than plants. Game balance (such as it is) is administered through Reach, instead – if you can imagine two versions of the same spell in the same Practice, and one is obviously more powerful than the other, our advice is to make the more powerful one a Reach effect on the less powerful one. Because the Practices are now hard-locked to their dot ratings, they’re much improved as the means for a Storyteller to figure out what dot-rating a spell needs to be.



Errata: We have changed the creative thaumaturgy rules to reflect direct attacks not always being Fraying or Unraveling and Healing not always being Perfecting and Patterning.

 Damage

A spell can deal damage directly, as in the case of a thunderbolt or an enervating touch, or indirectly, as in the case of rotting out a support beam to drop a house on someone.

• Boosting means of direct damage can be a matter of practice of Ruling (••) to affect a sort of "unshielding" effect, an inversion of the protection offered by mage armors.  Making sure an item is more breakable, making sure bullets fly faster, cuts more deadly, matter more explosive.  All arcana can do something to add damage dealt by weapons or fists can all be accomplished with the practice of Ruling.

• Direct damage spells are usually either Fraying (•••) or Unraveling (••••), and inflict damage equal to their Potency factor.

• Fraying spells inflict bashing damage, while Unraveling spells inflict lethal damage.

• An Unraveling spell may be upgraded to aggravated damage for the cost of a point of Mana and one Reach.

Spells that deal damage indirectly aren’t subject to these limits: A spell that causes a roaring bonfire to spread and consume the victim inflicts the standard damage for exposure to fire.

Healing
Much like damage in reverse, instant-healing spells are usually Perfecting (•••) or Patterning (••••) spells. A Ruling (••) spell can boost a subject’s natural healing time.

• A Ruling spell can halve the subject’s normal recovery time for its Duration, or quarter it with a Reach.

• Perfecting spells heal bashing damage or repair inanimate objects.

• Patterning spells heal lethal damage. If an inanimate object is completely destroyed rather than merely broken, it may require a Patterning spell to fix.

• A Patterning healing spell can repair aggravated damage instead of lethal at the cost of one point of Mana and a Reach.

Mana Costs
While this section discusses a variety of effects that require Mana costs, here’s a convenient, collected reminder of all spellcasting effects that cost Mana:

• Each improvised spell (not Praxes or Rotes) outside Ruling Arcana costs a point of Mana.

• Many Attainments require Mana or are more efficient with its use.

• Spells that directly call upon the perfection of the Supernal Realms require a point of Mana.
This includes the following effects:

1. Indefinite Duration
2. Inflicting aggravated damage
3. Healing aggravated damage
4. Granting the Rote Action Quality
5. Granting automatic success or failure
6. Boosting Traits beyond the subject’s maximum rating or altering that rating

All Mana costs are cumulative. A mage attempting a feat that requires Mana above her Gnosis-derived spending limit may take as many turns as needed before the action to spend the required
Mana. If she is interrupted or changes her mind part-way through, Mana spent is still lost.

Conditions & Tilts

As pre-packaged blocks of rules already designed to fit into a lot of different systems, Conditions are an excellent source of inspiration for long-lasting spells. Because the effects of Conditions and Tilts are so broad, it’s difficult to assign hard-and-fast rules for Practices that inflict them. Use the Practice descriptions and the following list as a guideline:

• Compelling (•) spells can’t create Conditions out of whole cloth, but can intensify phenomena that already exist to inflict Conditions. A Compelling spell can make someone who’s already nervous Spooked, for example, but can’t make someone who’s uninterested in the mage romantically Swooning.

• Ruling (••) spells can create most non-Persistent, mundane Conditions. Supernatural Conditions, such as the Soulless Condition and its sequels or Manifestation Conditions, generally require a Weaving (•••) spell.

• Creating a Persistent Condition is almost always a Patterning (••••) or Unraveling (••••) effect.

• Spells most often inflict Conditions that harm, hinder, or inconvenience characters. Spells can mimic the effects of a helpful Condition, but using magic to gain a benefit and a Beat is double-dipping. Beneficial Conditions created by magic don’t grant Beats unless they’re the result of an

exceptional success.

• Tilts are usually created by applying a Reach to an attack spell, but if you want to create one on its own, it’s usually a Fraying (•••) or Patterning (••••) spell.

Conditions created with magic only last as long as the Duration factor of the spell. If the target resolves the Condition before the Duration expires, the spell ends early and the target gains a Beat as normal. (It’s the Storyteller’s call whether the Beat is normal or Arcane.) If the Duration runs out, the Condition goes away; but that doesn’t count as resolving the Condition. Removing a condition with magic is always at least a Ruling (••) spell, but otherwise follows the same guidelines as creating one.

Bonuses/Penalties

Spells that grant bonus dots to traits can belong to nearly any Practice, depending on what the Trait represents. Obvious examples include Perfecting for directly increasing the Attributes and Skills of a target, but a Ruling spell to make a corpse rise up and serve you can be modeled as a spell that grants you Retainer dots.

• Increasing a Skill or Merit is typically a Ruling (••) spell. Attributes can be increased by a Perfecting (•••) spell.

• Spells that grant or increase equipment bonuses count as Trait bonuses. This also applies to spells that simply increase a dice pool.

• A spell can grant a total number of Trait dots equal to its Potency. Advantages, such as Gnosis or a vampire’s Blood Potency, cannot be granted by spells, nor can supernatural abilities like Arcana or Disciplines.

• Any spell that increases a Trait beyond the target’s natural maximum costs a point of Mana. Remember that high-Gnosis mages and other supernatural creatures may have Trait maximums higher than 5. The “Trait maximum” for an equipment bonus is always +5.

• Trait dots granted by magic last only as long as the spell’s Duration, and are not subject to the Sanctity of Merits rule.

Dice Effects

• A Ruling (••) spell can grant the 9-Again rule to a dice pool of relevant actions, or 8-Again with one Reach.

• A Perfecting (•••) spell can grant the rote action quality at the cost of one point of Mana.

• The spell affects one roll per point of Potency. If the spell’s Duration expires before the Potency is used up, any excess Potency is lost.

Protection

Most commonly with the Practice of Shielding (••), a spell may grant protection from forces under the Arcanum’s purview. These spells usually provide blanket immunity to natural or mundane phenomena, while protecting against a number of supernatural attacks equal to the spell’s Potency. Such attacks must win a Clash of Wills to affect the target.

Hiding

Veiling (••) spells render the target undetectable to certain phenomena or types of beings. This stealth is fully effective against ordinary senses, and provokes a Clash of Wills against mystical detection attempts.

Narrative Effects

This is a catch-all category for spell effects that influence the fiction of the game but don’t interact directly with the mechanics. Things like walking through walls, shaping clay into a statue, or transmuting one substance into another fall under this category.

• Most narrative effects will care less for Potency than for Scale, Range, and other spell factors. However, if the effect could have varying degrees of success (consider trying to calm a hurricane: There’s a whole range of possibilities between “nothing happens” and “a dead calm”), the Storyteller should establish Potency requirements. The guidelines for determining the number of successes required on an extended action provide a good rule of thumb.

• Making a spell Lasting always costs +2 Reach, but you should think carefully before allowing it — only spells without any way to revert them should have the option.

And the Beat Goes On…

At this point, you may be wondering what’s stopping you from loading up on Condition-causing

spells in a relatively safe environment, resolving them all, and earning Beats by the bucketload? The honest answer is “nothing, mages do it all the time.” Mastigos force their apprentices to face terrifying fears in order to better themselves. Thyrsus challenge their own bodies with horrible diseases. The only limits are the rule that a character may only earn one Beat per scene from

resolving Conditions, and the limits of her own Wisdom. Remember, though, that letting a Condition-causing spell’s Duration expire doesn’t resolve the Condition.

Step Four: Determine Withstand Trait

Spells that directly target a subject’s body, mind, or soul are usually Withstood by one of the subject’s Resistance Attributes. Spells that cross the Gauntlet are Withstood by the local Gauntlet Strength. Other spells might be Withstood by more esoteric values.

Look at the intended subject of your spell. Is it something that could “fight back” against the magic, or is there something that seems like it would require the mage to put more effort than usual into the spell? If so, that’s the value that Withstands it. Living (or undead) subjects usually Withstand spells with Stamina (for physical transformations or afflictions), Resolve (for attempted mind control or other mental effects), or Composure (for emotional manipulation or effects that target sanity, perception, or the soul).

Ephemeral entities Withstand spells with their Rank. Supernatural beings like mages, vampires, or demons do not add their Supernatural Tolerance trait to Withstand a spell. Spells are only resisted or contested if some supernatural power would interfere with the mage’s ability to form an Imago,

such as Countermagic. Spells that inflict direct damage with the Practices of Fraying and Unraveling are never Withstood; the subject’s Stamina is already factored in by virtue of the subject’s Health.

“I Turn Him Into a Frog!”

You may have noticed with this system that it’s much easier for a mage to incapacitate an enemy

by, say, putting him to sleep or charming him into ignoring the caster than by fighting him. That’s intentional — but what about when it comes to directly killing someone with magic? Surely a Master of Death can snuff out a life with a glance, and if an Adept of Life can’t turn someone into a

frog, what good is she?

• Patterning (••••) spells can transform a living target into something harmless (or even inanimate), but such magic is never Lasting. It can be pushed up to Indefinite Duration, but there’s always a chance the spell can be broken.
• Certain Unmaking (•••••) spells can slay a target with a single casting, or neutralize them permanently, but even then, the spell is always Withstood by the target’s relevant Resistance Attribute.

 Step Five: Primary Factor

Determine which Factor is the Primary Factor. This is either Potency or Duration, with the rule of thumb of “whichever Factor you immediately think of when you think of a more powerful version of the spell.” The Primary Factor of a given spell effect is always the same; you can’t make a creative thaumaturgy spell that’s identical to another spell except with a different Primary Factor.

Step Six: Cast the Spell

At this point you’re done creating your new spell; refer to the spellcasting rules to cast it!