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sjones7060
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Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:03 pm
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 Spells - Broken and/or Modified
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Before things get to involved or combat heavy. I wanted to put out a topic to either list spells that the ST is modifing/and or banning. Stuff like Diplomat's Protection from the Silver Ladder book can seriously end up being broken when their is no cap on it. Same with Body Control.
I'm of the mindset if the players can do it so can the NPCs and vice-versa. SO I just want to make sure of anything the ST wants to discuss or put out now to avoid problems in the future.
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Lermanicus
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:10 am
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Ritual Casting of Body control is insane. Easy limit for Body Control is max successes limited to Life dots.
Points at West to chime in for balance issues.
Suggestions: (I have seen theses some where before)
Extended Action rolls will be limited to a number equal to your Gnosis. This includes ritual castings and Scrutiny.
Rote die pools will be limited to 3X your Gnosis, if the pool is over 8.
Ambient (free) Mana at a Hallow can only be used in an amount equal to your Gnosis.
Puissant Skill and Willful process are upped to 3 dot spells and cost Mana.
_________________
Nothing is random, we just don't understand the variables.
Lt. August Kordecki (Mortal)
John Dee (Awakened)
Nicodemus Panagopoulos (Ghoul)
Twinkee Joe (Forsaken) Glory 1 Honor 2 Purity 2 Wisdom 1
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West
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:21 am
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Hmmm, yes, those look familiar 
I've actually been trying to avoid this topic, since several of us all come (kinda) from the same group and I didn't want it to seem like we were advocating specific system changes en masse.
If anyone is interested in the rationale behind any of those suggestions Lermanicus posted, I will be happy to elaborate.
I think it will be CRITICAL, and I can't stress this enough, that the Mage Extended Casting (i.e. Ritual Casting) be limited in some way for crossover balance. Again, I am more than happy to discuss the reasoning behind this statement.
Some of the suggestions, however, are hard to swallow for players used to playing Mage as written. This may or may not have an effect on getting new players, which is worth mentioning.
_________________
Dog: Protean 1
Asa: Protean 1, Striking Looks 2 (handsome), Presence 4 ((-1 Vitae)) Resilience
Nightfall: Polychromatic Fairest, Striking Looks 2 (Intense Eyes) -2 Glamour -1 WP
Zero: TrAur$, Untouch$
West: SupAug$*, Misdir$ + MenS$, 3rd Eye$ + MTM$ (PerInv, Acc, PsySwX3)(4.0)
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Lermanicus
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:30 am
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| West wrote: |
I think it will be CRITICAL, and I can't stress this enough, that the Mage Extended Casting (i.e. Ritual Casting) be limited in some way for crossover balance. Again, I am more than happy to discuss the reasoning behind this statement.
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In total agreement! Often a spell is fine till it has a die pool of 150. I vote for some type of extended cast constraint.
_________________
Nothing is random, we just don't understand the variables.
Lt. August Kordecki (Mortal)
John Dee (Awakened)
Nicodemus Panagopoulos (Ghoul)
Twinkee Joe (Forsaken) Glory 1 Honor 2 Purity 2 Wisdom 1
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sjones7060
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:39 am
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| West wrote: |
I've actually been trying to avoid this topic, since several of us all come (kinda) from the same group and I didn't want it to seem like we were advocating specific system changes en masse. |
Yeah I'm not trying to force any rule changes down anyones throats but Mage is one of the most open ended systems and certainly the most complex. I know something is going to come up if we dont set some ground rules down early. When there are characters with High end Gnosis and Arcanes 4+ its going to get ugly quickly if there isnt some sort of moderation. Both on the PC end and the NPC. Lord knows if the NPCs which on normal standards are a bit better at EVERYTHING than the PCs start hurling 150 Die pools at anyone its over before it starts.
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Professor Normal
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:50 am
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| Lermanicus wrote: | | Extended Action rolls will be limited to a number equal to your Gnosis. This includes ritual castings and Scrutiny. |
I like this
| Quote: | | Rote die pools will be limited to 3X your Gnosis, if the pool is over 8. |
Ahhhhh! Hisss! Back! Obviously I don't like this. I spent a great deal of experiance buying rotes, along with the attributes and skills to back them up. If I had known that something like this was going to be mentioned, I would have just spent all that xp on Gnosis and Arcana.
| Quote: | | Ambient (free) Mana at a Hallow can only be used in an amount equal to your Gnosis. |
Wouldn't a limit of the Hallow's rating be better streamlined?
| Quote: | | Puissant Skill and Willful process are upped to 3 dot spells and cost Mana. |
I like this even more.
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sjones7060
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:58 am
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Normal,
Obviously none of these are official these are just suggestions we are throwing out for discussion. Anything final are calls by the Mage ST and the Board ST.
However I do think the Extended Action rolls limit of Gnosis is one that most people agree on and should probably be the main one pushed for if nothing else.
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Dredloke
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:58 am
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| Quote: | Rote die pools will be limited to 3X your Gnosis, if the pool is over 8.
Ahhhhh! Hisss! Back! Obviously I don't like this. I spent a great deal of experiance buying rotes, along with the attributes and skills to back them up. If I had known that something like this was going to be mentioned, I would have just spent all that xp on Gnosis and Arcana. |
Normal
Please explain to me why you feel you need a die pool that greatly surpases anything any of the other splats could ever think of doing?
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tsameti
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:06 am
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One personal favorite rule is:
No spell dice pool may be modified by more than 5 dice by any magical means.
This is inclusive of High Speech, and magical attribute/skill improvement.
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Frost
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:14 am
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Ok, this is where I step in and add my two cents.
1) I greatly appreciate this thread being opened, thank you very more for the foresight.
2) This board was origionally designed to incorperate all of the venues. I have worked my butt off for over two years now to get this place going and open cross-over has always been my goal.
3) Limitations are going to have to be made. Mage is a very high powered game and in order to be able to contend with it, I would have to raise the power level of the other venues. I honestly do not want to do that. I would like to come to some compromise that would allow the venues to stay on egual footing without having to take Mage out of the question. (or as equal as we can get without nerfing the whole game)
_________________
"I might like you better if we slept together."
Sheriff Ishani Naetesh, Gabriel Marcus, Shadow, Lioni Dupree, Veritas, Bella Orchid, Valencia, Zen, Jamie Jones (JJ), Lisaundra Frost, Karma, Maxine Fairchild/Ankh, Lavender Rose, Detective Venessa Blas
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West
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:22 am
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Well, I can say all of those house rules have been played with quite a bit, and seem to work well.
_________________
Dog: Protean 1
Asa: Protean 1, Striking Looks 2 (handsome), Presence 4 ((-1 Vitae)) Resilience
Nightfall: Polychromatic Fairest, Striking Looks 2 (Intense Eyes) -2 Glamour -1 WP
Zero: TrAur$, Untouch$
West: SupAug$*, Misdir$ + MenS$, 3rd Eye$ + MTM$ (PerInv, Acc, PsySwX3)(4.0)
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Lermanicus
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:26 am
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I am for limiting the mage game.... I think what you have here is great and I would hate to see mage screw it up.
If a redo on characters is needed I am for that. This has not been mentioned by anyone but me, but I understand wanting to tune a character if the rules change.
Sympathetic Magic is a big issue and I and a few other mage have it / have used it. One suggestion is to double the paradox for sympathetic spells or at least sympathetic attack spells. Maybe also say that sympathetic paradox is resistant, meaning there is no mitigation of it.
I am just rambling now.
_________________
Nothing is random, we just don't understand the variables.
Lt. August Kordecki (Mortal)
John Dee (Awakened)
Nicodemus Panagopoulos (Ghoul)
Twinkee Joe (Forsaken) Glory 1 Honor 2 Purity 2 Wisdom 1
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Professor Normal
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:27 am
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Do you mean in just a regular casting or a Ritual casting? I agree that Ritual Casting is powerful against everything, and it should be toned down somewhat.
Here's my rotes that have more than 8 dice and the dice I pull from them (note that most of these have a order specialty skill in there)
Shadow Sculpting (12 dice)
covert spell, so no paradox to bite me in the rear. Having such a high dice poll basically just lets me pile on penalties to visual awareness, making it the poor man's invisibility.
Devouring The Slain (11 dice subtract target's Stamina)
Vulgar. Not really a ritual spell, because anyone I'm using it on is already dying.
Quicken Corpse (13 dice)
Vulgar, so Paradox is an issue. Also Disbelief factor into it. Sure, I can sit down for a few hours and pump juice into a dead guy for an afternoon to make a super zombie, but then I get to watch it fall apart after Joe Blow on the street gets a good look at it. You say the answer is to put successes into potency? Then my Zombies suck, I have to allocate successes to every single thing that makes up their stats. If I want them to be more that meat shields, I have to skimp on potency. Then what if I want multiple zombies or zombies that last more than an hour? There go all the successes to stats and Potency.
Summon Shadows (12 dice)
Vulgar. The escape power. Throw this up and I have instant cover at a durability of, what, 6 if I roll well? Nice, but not game breaking.
Revenant (11 dice vs Resolve+Gnosis)
Vulgar. Same basic thing as Quicken Corpse, plus I need to find fresh dead people, which is more of a hassle than digging up a graveyard.
Suppress Others Life (11 dice vs Composure+Gnosis)
The "attack" power. I don't have a real reason why, other than if a kindred with Strength 3, Weaponry 3 (appropriate specialty), a weapon with an equipment bonus of +2 and Vigor 2 (which is not unreasonable if everyone is running around with 100+ expreience) has the same dice to an attack as I do.
Mental Shield - (11 dice)
This only applies to other mages trying to dispel it, so it's kinda a moot point.
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Professor Normal
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:35 am
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| Quote: | One personal favorite rule is:
No spell dice pool may be modified by more than 5 dice by any magical means.
This is inclusive of High Speech, and magical attribute/skill improvement. |
One of mine is that magical boosts to Stamina don't increase your Spell Tolerance.
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West
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:40 am
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Well, Normal, what you're glossing over is that you can use High Speech, and boost attributes. You're also selecting easily defensible (as harmless) spells. What you're not showing is what a 13 die pool Psychic Sword looks like when you cast Supreme Augmentation and Gain Skill.
There isn't another splat out there that can throw a 25 die direct damage attack. And we both know that is a fairly modest number, since I'm not using the full 15 die pool, nor accounting for High Speech or Factor Bonuses.
The Rote limitation isn't that bad, either, if you do the math:
G3 = 9
G4 = 12
G5 = 15 (pre-house rule maximum)
| Professor Normal wrote: | | One of mine is that magical boosts to Stamina don't increase your Spell Tolerance. |
That's not a "house rule". That's you not reading the rules properly.
_________________
Dog: Protean 1
Asa: Protean 1, Striking Looks 2 (handsome), Presence 4 ((-1 Vitae)) Resilience
Nightfall: Polychromatic Fairest, Striking Looks 2 (Intense Eyes) -2 Glamour -1 WP
Zero: TrAur$, Untouch$
West: SupAug$*, Misdir$ + MenS$, 3rd Eye$ + MTM$ (PerInv, Acc, PsySwX3)(4.0)
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Professor Normal
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:57 am
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I gloss over nothing. Those are MY rotes. I have one other one, but it tops out at 7 dice.
If someone is building characters based around boosting their attributes and skills via magic and using that to throw around 20-odd dice effects, that's something the ST's need to take note of and stop before that character sees play. If I spend a good chunk of my starting points and a good third of my experience buying rotes that aren't broken and the skills to back them up, I should get to use them, otherwise it promotes people breaking the game to stay competitive.
There was a sidebar in a book, possibly Tome of the Mysteries, that addressed the whole "I spend a day building a fireball and casting it sympathetically" issue. I think it said that fraying, unraveling and unmaking spells should be unable to be cast as a ritual.
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sjones7060
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:58 am
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Heck I think I can say even a level 2 spell like Control Heat or Sound can turn into a killer spell when your talking rotes with 15-20 some die adding the aforementioned skills bonuses and HS. I mean 10 degrees a sux , doubling the sound volume per sux. You lock someone in a freezer and drop the temp or into a small room with a fire alarm bell rigged to go off. Your looking at killing people pretty easy there or some pretty serious damage.
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West
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:05 am
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| Professor Normal wrote: | | ...otherwise it promotes people breaking the game to stay competitive. |
I didn't realize this was a competition.
Anyway, I've explained the reasoning. If any of the venue ST's have further questions, I'm more than happy to elaborate.
_________________
Dog: Protean 1
Asa: Protean 1, Striking Looks 2 (handsome), Presence 4 ((-1 Vitae)) Resilience
Nightfall: Polychromatic Fairest, Striking Looks 2 (Intense Eyes) -2 Glamour -1 WP
Zero: TrAur$, Untouch$
West: SupAug$*, Misdir$ + MenS$, 3rd Eye$ + MTM$ (PerInv, Acc, PsySwX3)(4.0)
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Saxelby
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:11 am
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We already have examples of this mage game being out of balance with the others games.
A PC has been teleported against their will.
If a space mage can't protect himself against sympathetic magic, what will happen to a vampire, werewolf, or other character?
I hesitated posting as I am uncertain on how to balance all the potential issues. I see some ideas here that seem very good.
Carl
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West
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:12 am
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| Saxelby wrote: | A PC has been teleported against their will.
Carl |
Ah, and that isn't all. That's a whole different can of worms.
_________________
Dog: Protean 1
Asa: Protean 1, Striking Looks 2 (handsome), Presence 4 ((-1 Vitae)) Resilience
Nightfall: Polychromatic Fairest, Striking Looks 2 (Intense Eyes) -2 Glamour -1 WP
Zero: TrAur$, Untouch$
West: SupAug$*, Misdir$ + MenS$, 3rd Eye$ + MTM$ (PerInv, Acc, PsySwX3)(4.0)
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Professor Normal
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:19 am
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| West wrote: | | I didn't realize this was a competition. |
sigh
It isn't. That's the damn point.. That's why I'm saying if you cut down everyone because someone might put together an effect that breaks the system's back, it promotes people looking for more ways to break the system. Then good, honest, relatively innocent players like me get disgusted and leave because they can't keep up with the other players that have a firmer grasp of the rules.
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sjones7060
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:42 am
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| Professor Normal wrote: | | West wrote: | | I didn't realize this was a competition. |
sigh
It isn't. That's the damn point.. That's why I'm saying if you cut down everyone because someone might put together an effect that breaks the system's back, it promotes people looking for more ways to break the system. Then good, honest, relatively innocent players like me get disgusted and leave because they can't keep up with the other players that have a firmer grasp of the rules. |
It does? I've always been of the thinking "Put a lock on your stuff. Keep honest people honest" Restricting certain aspects isnt meant to whip the players that arent as familar with the system and all its loopholes, if anything it keeps the number crunchers that have nothing better to do than steamrolling over the others completely.
I understand your position of wanting to defend your character and the XP choices you made. Trust me I know about dumping XP into stuff other than just Arcanes and Gnosis raises. I also know that when I'm backed into a corner like a wounded animal. I'll go for the loaded 9mm over the knife. If I can sponge dice for a spell going after BEBG(Big Evil Bad Guy) I'm going to do it. I also expect the ST to find every possible die he can find for said BEBG to throw at me. The restrictions limit that from having 100 some die flying at your head as well.
Remember if you can do something. The ST's NPCs can do it also, and most likely BETTER and EASIER.
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tsameti
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 4:05 am
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With all due respect guys, I think you're being a little too hard on Normal.
Especially since so far the huge dice pools have not been coming from him.
So let's just wait until the ST returns so that we can talk this over and hammer out some middle ground that preserves the value of rotes, but doesn't allow dice monstrosities.
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sjones7060
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 4:13 am
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Its certainly not my intent to come across harsh. I dont hold ill will towards anyone and I certainly hope that feeling is returned. Obviously all this back and forth is irrelavant until as you said the ST gets a chance to chime in.
We're all doomed to die at the hands of the Grand Archmage Teddy Ruxpin anyways. 
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tsameti
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Sun Dec 28, 2008 4:22 am
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I heard Ruxpin draws his power from the sixth watchtower.
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