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MAGEHAMMER 
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 MAGEHAMMER
Main points on HAMMERING the suck out of MtA are as follows:

  1. Wisdom: rework in the same style as Morality in the HAMMER CORE thread. Focus here is on more Wisdom & Sense vs Corruption & Base Villainry
  2. Rotes should be cleary better than improvised casting, and improvised casting should be basically crap. Improvised casting should be an emergency fallback, not a core mechanic
  3. Mana should be used more often and in larger quantities. Almost any spell other than one that simply detects (Knowing/Unveiling) or does basic defense/veiling should require mana expenditure.
  4. Getting mana should be harder than just getting the Prime mage in your group to mage-fuck a bunch of spare tires from the local dump. Mana is fucking magic juice. It's supernatural sauce.
  5. Rotes and spellcasting in general should be more 'flavorful'. The MtA book outlines a ton of spell casting 'color' in Imagos and styles and such, and ToM lists even more - but hardly any of it is used at all. USE IT FUCKERS.
  6. The Theme of Mage is supposed to be "Power Corrupts" - WHERE'S MY CORRUPTION???
  7. Scourging, 'Dox Soaking/Mitigation and other 'pain-based' mechanics are too pussyfied. Grow some teeth and some balls. Not to mention there should be SOME chance of failure.
  8. More teamwork, less omni-skilling. You should not be able to create a 1-man magic repository. Mages work in cabals and orders for a reason. MORE TEAM RITUALS AND TEAMWORK IN GENERAL
  9. Legacies should be more easily and more early accessible. Gnosis 3+ and a laundry list of other requirments is seldom hit in a real game.
  10. Legacies are about forfeiting your humanity for enlightenment and transcendence. MORE FOCUS ON THE DEHUMANIZATION OF BEING A NON-HUMAN, DUH.
  11. The opposite of Wisdom should be Hubris, not Magic. Why is this game called "Mage", but all the "Wisdom sins" pretty much amount to "Using Magic"...fuck that.
  12. Mage vs Sleeper should be energetic and exciting of an interaction. Not just "LOL YOUR SHIT DOESN'T WORK NOW."


Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:50 pm
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Post Re: MAGEHAMMER
1. Wisdom will be replaced by Hubris. Hubris will be a rating much like the Instability rating from the HAMMER CORE thread however, it will be instigated by periods of temptation to use supernatural powers in self-serving, hedonistic and irresponsible ways. With great power comes great responsibility and with great responsibility comes the possibility to be greatly irresponsible.

Any time your character faces a situation where the inappropriate application of magery could be achieve a goal, solve a problem, or mitigate an uncomfortable set of circumstances that could be resolved through mundane means, you must make a roll with current Willpower - current Hubris. Failure indicates that you gain a Hubris point and take the action, to whatever degree you decide, but the action must at least address the temptation by solving, mitigating or otherwise dealing with the temptation at hand. Success indicates that you do not take the action and may act in whatever fashion you decide. If you forfeit the roll or decide after succeeding in the roll, to act in an inappropriate or irresponsible manner anyway, you gain a Hubris point.

NOTE: Provoking situations should be of some import. Players should not be spamming hubris rolls to avoid cooking breakfast with magic.

Repeated exposure to the same tempting factor or situation in a single scene may be ignored and action taken as the player chooses, however cases involving a substantial 'upping of the ante' may provoke a second roll at ST's discretion. E.g: Someone is trying to goad your forces mage into a barfight. You successfully resist the urge to reduce his side of the bar to cinders, but later he smashes a beer bottle over the back of your head while you're trying to make a move on the hot chick in the corner. You should probably roll again.

Extreme stressors or temptations may also invoke a penalty of up to -5 on the roll at STs discretion.

NOTE2: The action taken due to a failed hubris roll does not have to be immediate. In our beer bottle example, you don't have to chuck a fireball at Asshole McDickerson right in the middle of the bar in front of all the sleepers, but you have to do SOMETHING, in short order...like going home and ritualing up some GOOD shit to throw at him when he least expects...

EDIT: Paradox durations originally based on Wisdom will instead be based on the following:


Bedlam/Anomaly: AoE if the spell was.
Duration based Spell's Duration:
Code:
Instant/Lasting/Concentration - One Scene
Prolonged - Equal to Duration
Advanced Prolonged - 2x what duration would be on regular Prolonged Duration chart.


Branding/Manifestation: AoE if the spell was.
Duration based Spell's Duration:
Code:
Instant/Lasting/Concentration - One Scene
Prolonged/Advanced Prolonged - Equal to Duration.


EDIT 2: You also still have your Instability rating. You don't have to check for anything within the 'normal' supernatural spectrum that a mage would encounter anymore...just for shit that's 'fucked up' by a mage's standard.


Thu Oct 20, 2011 5:47 pm
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Post Re: MAGEHAMMER
2. Rotes will remain mostly as is. Players should definitely review the casting factors and such from ToM for additional options and flavor here. However, not covered well in ToM, possible factor bonii should only really scale from +1-3, based on the same scale as tool and situation bonuses. Rotes, however, will no longer gain the benefit of -1 Mana cost, to help enforce Mana scarcity.

Improvised casting however, instead of the usual dice pool will use the same dice pool as it would if you were casting your improvised spell as a Rote, however, without the benefit of Skill dice. , and with a -3 as using an untrained Mental skill.


Thu Oct 20, 2011 5:52 pm
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Post Re: MAGEHAMMER
4. Getting Mana as per the book generally requires a Hallow and an Oblation. There's a lot of really colorful options for Oblations and some of them sound like a lot of fun to RP. However, most groups just get a member with a few dots of Prime and skip the whole thing. Or they just opt to use Tass and Scourging. Once the Prime mage gets a couple more dots, too, to hell with Hallows, we'll just sublimate a bunch of stuff from the local dump and make our own mana, then make it into tass for easy storage...

...this is plainly too easy and removes a lot of the fun that could be had here.

So, while being able to get Mana from a Hallow and make and use Tass all using Prime seems fairly reasonable, getting mana from a non-supernatural source (Siphon Integrity) will require an extended roll, rather than instant, as you're distilling the mundane down into the supernal. No free lunches. no more getting mana from fucking anything. Mana is bottled magic. It's the stuff of the supernatural. You can only harvest Mana from the supernatural outside of straight up blood or soul sacrifices.


Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:03 pm
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Post Re: MAGEHAMMER
7. 2 mechanics of note: Scourging and Paradox Mitigation. For the record, magically damaging your body and/or mind to harvest Mana from it, basically the little brother of a blood sacrifice should not just be a "Ok mark a couple ticks on your sheet and grab some Mana points" affair. It should be painful, take a toll on you and generally be pretty horrible. The mechanical penalties aren't too bad as-is, but the ability to just do this as a matter-of-fact thing seems to imply that every Joe Mage can do the basic equivalent of opening a vein without flinching. That's pretty hardcore. And not very interesting. Let's tone that down a touch.

Paradox mitigation isn't much better; You're, again, doing the equivalent of jumping in front of a bullet for the sake of the greater good. You might actually flinch on that note.

So, in both cases, there should be some sort of basic 'wait, you want me to do what?' roll. The roll again? 2 guesses, first one doesn't count. That's right, current Willpower.

For either, you cannot do the action if the roll fails, for Scourging, you cannot do it that scene at all. For Paradox, you just miss the chance for that instance of Paradox. Additionally, even if successful, intentionally injuring oneself is taxing and, obviously, painful. Scourging requires at least 1 full scene of recovery to act normally, and the character will be at an effective -3 wound penalty for that scene if forced to act. For Paradox mitigation, the character is wracked by pain and suffers a -3 penalty for 1 round per damage point taken. stunned and unable to act due to pain and disorientation for 1 round per point of damage taken.


Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:26 pm
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Post Re: MAGEHAMMER
8. For starts, everyone gets the full 5-dot version of the Ritual Synergy Merit from page 74 of ToM. Free. Regardless of prerequisites. No, thank YOU. You're welcome. Now fuck off, because we're modifying the Gnosis chart, too.

First off: ritual casting roll times. Rituals take a long time. Bigger, more powerful rituals take MORE time, not less. WTF? Times per roll are now 4 hours across the board.

Arcana Mastery is now as such:

Code:
1 - 3  2  2  X  X
2 - 4  3  2  X  X
3 - 4  4  2  1  X
4 - 5  4  3  2  X
5 - 5  5  3  3  1

I'm not listing Archmastery levels, because no one gets that in reasonable games.


Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:50 pm
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Post Re: MAGEHAMMER
9. Legacies are now accessibly to anyone, straight up from game 1 onward. Legacies now basically unlock an 11th Arcana for you. This Arcana is purchased for "in-Path" costs, does not invoke Paradox or Disbelief, and counts as your level in the Legacy. This Arcana operates by rules set entirely by the Legacy. The Legacy will also replace your Instability trait with a new trait based on your Legacy, to signify your utter departure from humanity. Progression within your Legacy should not be all fun and roses and should come with both benefit and drawbacks. You may purchase Rotes based on your Legacy Arcana, but you may not use this Arcana to cast any sort of combined or combination spell. It is an entirely separate ability.

Individual Legacies will not be re-written at this time; Any Legacy listed in the book LIKELY is still avilable, but will need to be statted out a bit. Deal with it. 8-)

12. The whole explanation of the reason for Disbelief is that inside each Sleeper resides an aware shard of the Abyss. Last I checked the Abyss didn't just counterspell magery that it 'detected'. So, rather than the usual effects of "Unraveling", this system will include additional Paradoxes! Yay! Any spell Unraveled by Disbelief will have the final Unraveling roll counted as a Paradox roll, with the Paradox invoked as if by the original casting Mage (or Mages), and they may NOT attempt to contain the Paradox as Backlash.


Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:34 pm
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