Mage How To Buff

How to Buff

WIP GUIDE ON REASONABLE "USUALLY ON" BUFFING

A mage needs to be prepared! But there are trade-offs to overusing their abilities. This is a guide about what can be considered good manners on our game when preparing effects in advance.

This is a guide about long-term or daily effects, not about the prep you might do before going into battle, such as purchasing the strongest potions.

Some relevant house rules: - As a reminder, we charge downtime for longer offscreen actions. -- A Ritual (1-5 successes) takes 5 minutes per roll. -- A Ceremony (6-10 successes) takes 1 hour per roll. We charge 1 downtime for each Ceremony (not each roll) -- A Great Work (11+ successes) takes 5 hours per roll. We charge 1 downtime for each Great Work Roll. - Every 2 effects a character has on themselves makes it easier to detect their later effects with Awareness or Prime sight. See 'news awareness' - Every 2 effects a character has on themselves adds 1 Permanent Paradox. Recall that this is a bad name and White Wolf should feel bad about it. It really means "sticky" paradox, and is essentially extra dice rolled on top of normal paradox when a backlash occurs.

And some relevant book rules: - Every 2 effects in M20 DOES NOT cause a difficulty penalty to cast Magick, as long as the effects are within their normal duration and don't require concentration.

And some relevant clarifications: - See Permanent Paradox And Pattern Bleeding

Casting small effects every day

An effect that has a target of 5 or fewer successes only takes a few minutes to cast. Thus, a character could theoretically cast a few of these in the morning and have them last the rest of the day, and take about the same amount of time they would to put on their makeup or read the newspaper.

- Pros: -- Can cast several of these with no downtime cost. -- Avoids Pattern Bleeding - Cons: -- 2 of the successes would go to the duration (one day), leaving only 3 in the budget for effect. Thus, powerful or complicated effects can't be kept up using this method. -- A "one day" duration isn't strictly 24 hours. With this option we will enforce a few hour gap where your character is vulnerable. Some paradigms might have their "one day" spells ending with the dawn, for others it might be at a different time. If you want 24/7 coverage, a longer duration is required. -- Lots of smaller effects might lead to hitting the house rules about multiple effects -- Please don't stack similar effects to get around the spirit of this. e.g. Better Body 4 times each morning to get a +3 to strength, dex, stamina, and appearance. You *can* cast it *once* to get a +3 to *one* of those things, or +1 each to *three* of those things, given the 3 success budget.

Still, a character might have a morning routine of a series of five-minute rituals that steady themselves with a mind shield, proof themselves against disease, make themselves a little more alert, and pretty themselves up... and there's nothing wrong with doing that. It probably won't even be long enough for us to ask for downtime if you are reasonable, about an hour per day. If you have such a routine, let us know and we'll note it. We'll figure out the time it takes for you to do these morning rituals and some monthly paradox you receive using averages based on your circumstances so that you aren't putting in a daily job, and we'll add a persistant note to you.

Casting longer-lasting effects (month or 6 month duration)

WIP