Precedents

This page is to organize all the precedents that staff have set so that rulings can be consistent going forward. On this page you'll find our precedents as well as reminders and confirmations about book rules we use, as sometimes the core material can be contradictory or confusing.

Casting In General

When you cast a spell, if you fail on your Arete roll, the difficulty goes up for the next roll(s). This is standard mechanics. If you want, you can drop a spell and start over again to potentially return to a lower difficulty. Please do keep in mind that when stopping and starting over again with a Vulgar spell (with or without witnesses), this still counts as failing, which will net you Paradox as per the mechanics.

Spheres

Correspondence

Apportation (Correspondence 2): Correspondence 2 can indeed be used to apport an item within the same space within your immediate vicinity, such as moving an orange from one plate on a table to another plate on that same table. This feat requires 3 successes on an Arete roll (2 for Standard Task, 1 for Correspondence Range). The item needs to be within your immediate vicinity for this feat to be accomplished.

Finding People And Things: Correspondence lets you clairvoyantly use your mortal senses. If you have a sympathetic link or can identify an item or person correctly with your senses you can find this person or item with Correspondence 2 alone. If you cannot, you need a Pattern sphere.

A sympathetic link is a physical part of that item or person. Literal parts of the target (their own blood/hair, a mechanical part of a device) are clearly valid. Indirect items (a shirt the target wore, the box an item came in) depend on the situation.

What we mean by "identify an item or person correctly with your senses" is, you need enough familiarity with your target such that, if the target were to be in the same room as you, you could reasonably identify said target. You've seen Jimbo's face before, for example.

Example: Jimmy wants to find the MacBook with The Important Files. In Scenario A, the MacBook is custom: he knows it has a pink case and three Lisa Frank stickers on it. This is distinct enough for him to find it with Correspondence 2. In Scenario B, the MacBook is standard issue: it looks like every other MacBook out of the factory. This is not distinct enough for him. If he wanted to only use purely Correspondence, he'd need a sympathetic link, like the charger that was issued with it.

Data

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Entropy

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Forces

Faraday Effect To produce a Faraday-like effect requires Matter, not Forces, because the basic science behind one is that the material of the cage blocks the radiation physically.

Finding Data Forces is the appropriate pattern sphere for data on hard discs / SSDs, as they use magnetic fields. It is not the appropriate pattern sphere for data on CDs and DVDs (that is Matter).

Life

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Matter

Faraday Effect To produce a Faraday-like effect requires Matter, not Forces, because the basic science behind one is that the material of the cage blocks the radiation physically.

Finding Data Matter is the appropriate pattern sphere for detecting data on CDs, DVDs and records because the information is communicated by the topography of the disc.

Mind

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Prime

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Spirit

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Time

Whenever something ambiguous or nonstandard is ruled with this sphere, we will save the set precedent here.

Wonders

We use the rules for crafting Wonders in M20 Book of Secrets, starting on page 160 onward. Each roll on a Wonder creation equals 1 hour of casting.

Trinkets

Magic Weapons

Lower Difficulty On To-Hit Rolls

• Required Spheres: Prime 2. If it is Prime 2 alone, the spell is Vulgar.
• Optional Spheres: Matter 3. If Matter 3 is added, the spell is Coincidental.
• Required Successes: 5 to 7 successes.
  • 3 successes, base, to make imbuing an effect possible on an existing item.
  • +2 successes for -1 base difficulty when attacking (total 5 successes).
  • +3 successes for -2 base difficulty when attacking (total 6 successes).
  • +4 successes for -3 base difficulty when attacking (total 7 successes).
• The limit for difficulty modifiers in any and all contexts is -3, so no more successes are necessary.

Precedent set by job 41.