Creating Magical Effects

Steps

When you decide to work magic (or whatever your mage calls it), you need to go through a simple process to determine the results. Follow these steps:

Determine the Effect

Figure out what you want to do, whether it’s hurling a ball of flame, causing people around you to fail to notice your presence or making dice fall as you dictate.

Decide Upon Your Method

Each mage’s paradigm- his means of looking at magic-influences the casting of an Effect. If you’re a Hermetic mage, you probably use Enochian chants, the names of powerful angels and spirits, geometric sigils or glyphs. If you’re a Virtual Adept, you might reprogram a computer to project energy or re-code the surrounding universe itself. Figure out how your mage justifies the Effect in order to determine what focus and what Ability you use with the spell. Mages don’t just crank out spells. They work, chant, pray and invoke to make the magic happen.

Check Your Knowledge

Do you know how to accomplish what you want to do? Look at your character’s Spheres and determine what knowledge will help complete the feat. If you have the appropriate rote, you’re fine. If not, you may not be able to work the Effect. If you use the optional rule for fast-casting, you can try to cast the rote even if you don’t know it. If you use the optional rule for dynamic magic, you can try to build an Effect that does what you want, even if there is no rote for it. However, if you don’t have the necessary Sphere requirements, you can’t perform the magic. The base assumption is that you cannot perform a given spell unless your Spheres and rotes explicitly list the ability to do so.

== Calculate Difficulty == The base difficulty for a magical Effect is the Effect’s Sphere level in Traits if it’s coincidental, plus one if it’s vulgar, plus another one if it happens in view of Sleepers who wouldn’t believe that it’s possible. Add modifiers based on the circumstances,as shown in the following chart.

Perform the Effect

You cast the Effect by making a Static Challenge. Generally, no Narrator is required as long as your Effect conforms to the rules presented here. You simply make the challenge against anyone handy. (Just be sure to tell the other person what you’re doing so that she doesn’t get the wrong idea.) If you win the challenge, your Effect succeeds. Work out the result as described for your rote or Sphere and continue. If you lose, your Effect fails. If you tie, you must check your Arete Traits against the Effect’s static difficulty, which you computed before. You win if you have more Traits or equal Traits. Note that if you lose the test, you can retest with an appropriate Ability for your focus (see the list of foci and Abilities on p. 178, which you picked when you decided upon your method. Also, you can over bid with your Arete if you have twice as many Arete Traits as the Effect’s Trait difficulty. However, your opponent can overbid if the reverse is true.

Wound modifiers do not affect your Static Arete Challenge. Therefore, you do not come into the challenge Traits down or lose on ties automatically simply for being wounded. However, you cannot perform an Effect if you are unconscious and have not somehow maintained your thinking process magically.

Suffer Paradox

Once you’ve finished the Effect, you will take Paradox. Typically, Paradox causes a small amount of damage, but the Paradox Judge may decide upon another Effect as well. See the section on Paradox later in this chapter.

Modifiers

CASTING DIFFICULTY TRAIT MODIFIRES

Cause, Status, or Trait	Modifier
Already Maintainang An Effect	+1 per two Effects Maintained
Spending Quintessence	-1 per Quintessence Trait Spent (Max -3, limited by Spending)
Domino Effect	+1 per Effect (Max +3)
Opposed Resonance Trait	+1
Assisting Resonance Trait	-1
Using specialty focus	-1
Using non-required focus	-1
Spending Extra Time	-1
In or near a Node	-1
Surpassing a necessary focus	+3