Mage 2e was released to Beast's backers who selected that tier, as well as playtesters. The rest of us who want to purchase it properly will be salivating for the next 20-something hours, and then hardcopies will take about another month. In the meantime, someone has shared the PDF with us, so let's not pretend we aren't pouring over it for flaws and thinking how cool it is while wishing we actually played games.
https://mega.nz/#!B4US0aqZ!ZfMiO0LX9FP2pRWGMJKmosYd8PJiChPGx3ZJLKUJZs8
Today's topic is about Mage, because we got a book to hype/bitch about.
What are your favorite attainments/arcana? What legacies do you plan to transfer over first?
>Previous Thread: >>47059905
>Pastebin
http://pastebin.com/mByuG93b
chronicles of mage is a sad shitness
>>47069397
I plan to transfer over the Awakening Gambit, since that's what my current Mage is, and I love the chessmaster theme of it.
Mage 2e is so shit I want to cry.
I was so hyped, so much of the book is awesome, and then they shit the bed so very hard.
It feels like getting a dickpunch for your birthday.
>Your character’s Signature Nimbus is particularly overbearing. Whenever a character scrutinizes her Signature Nimbus with Mage Sight, he’s subject to the effects of her Immediate Nimbus and its corresponding Tilt
So I had an idea for a Cheiron Hunter.
I was thinking maybe a cop who has a fucked leg and after severe bouts of depression was fired for not showing up to work until he sees an ad for a clinical drug trial that might alleviate and heal old troublesome injuries.
Woops turns out its vampire blood capsules that have minor regenerative effects and pain relief but dont give you any of the super bonuses of being a ghoul. I was wondering how would I balance this to give my character an excuse to work for Cheiron. My 2 ideas was that the drug wears off after a month which makes the crippling pain come back or make it addictive like normal vampire blood.
>>47069017
Second degree master at gnosis 3?
That litlerly impossible you shit fuck. At least complain about something that the old rules allowed.
>>47069498
That honestly didn't seem that bad.
>>47069486
Honestly, it's so much better than 1e it's scary. You just let the hype build up to much. It was never going to be perfect fit everyone, nothing is.
>>47069748
I had Magical Components for the second Mastery. But whatever, you lot would just prolly go "There's the Yantra for that now".
>>47069749
>cast spell on object, person or place
>they acquire your Signature Nimbus
>your Signature Nimbus is a booby trap for any Mage who investigates it
>which they will, because they're fucking Mages
This merit could be renamed "I'm a colossal jackass" and it would still fit
>>47069748
Ooh, he got told.
>>47069784
>Magical Components
Not being derisive; what are those?
>>47069768
Well, there are still speedbumps, the arcana got nerfed, and everything just is so eh. You can't do much Lasting shit either now, because no, that's too broken.
What happens if I turn a chunk of iron into a sandwich, eat it, metabolize it, and then cancel the spell?
>>47069486
You gonna elaborate or...
>>47069790
But the tilt will give them, like, a -4 on something specific for a little bit. It's mean spirited, but not especially dangerous. Hell, a friendly Mage could give their nimbus a positive effect with that.
>>47069397
Ooh! Ooh! How many gender neutral pronouns are used?
Count of xim and xer?
>>47069838
None. At most, theirs s/he for an astral lich that has forgotten it's gender since it's so goddamn old.
>>47069829
You die of iron poison.
>>47069836
>unironically believing people will build a positive nimbus Tilt
I dunno what game you're playing
>>47069816
An option for Nameless and (with some STs) FC mages to up their Arcana (and do some more cool and nifty shit, that Yantras fucking cannot, by the way) by 1 dot if they jump through hoops like drugs and ritual scarification and hanging off meathooks by the skin of your back.
I did have a 5-4-2 spread legitimately, which that chart the guy upthread linked. I just was known to the Concilium as a double master, officially, since they've, you know, seen me cast Mastery spells in two arcana.
>>47069829
Most of the arcana got buffed, in the long run. Matter especially, actually. Dave will answer the lasting questions, I'm sure.
>>47069866
The book doesn't say so! What happens to the iron which is now in illegal bonds which are impossible, chemistry-wise?
>>47069882
The positive one normally effects you, which is helpful.
>>47069830
Life, Wisdom, Fate, Prime.
>>47069836
>, like, a -4 on something
Gnosis/2 total in penalties and bonuses. You'd have to be Gnosis 7 or better to inflict a -4 penalty, and that's all it can do.
>>47069925
Dude, fate got SO MUCH BETTER, are you nuts? It finally feels like Fate instead of probability.
>>47069862
Also their genitals probably fell off. Leprosy and all.
>>47069882
Fuck you, I'm gonna be positive.
>>47069892
>Dave will answer the lasting questions, I'm sure.
Giving the option to do lasting stuff in any meaningful capacity would mean that the -10 Indefinite reach shit is bypassable, so they never will.
>>47069925
>>47069956
Also, we've known how wisdom was going to work for over a year now. http://theonyxpath.com/sophias-choice-mage-the-awakening/
>>47069983
-10 is a cakewalk, especially if you have the primary factor as duration. Wait, IT'S ALSO ALWAYS BEEN -10.
>>47069956
So, it fucks with agency even better, you mean? I wonder what it would feel like for players when their enemy has Fate and they can do nothing because all their beginnings are already doomed.
OR
Their enemy has to be kept artificially retarded as not to do the aforementioned.
>>47069906
>The book doesn't say so!
Yes because it expects you to use your brain
>>47070004
It also always was a +10 (or something) to threshold and no one cast it fucking Instantly. Not so easy now, is it.
>>47070006
It's fate. So obviously if will affect your personal fate. How the fuck do you think it would work? It's not the arcana of Probability, it's Fate. So obviously agency doesn't always hold.
>>47070027
But I don't have an Enlightened brain IRL. I have no idea what happens if molecules in my body suddenly have carbon swapped around for iron.
Besides, even if I do die from iron poisoning, what toxicity poison I am dying from?
>>47070029
Seriously? If your still doing rituals, you can get a +5 by extending casting time. You read that, right? Are you defending fucking 1e ritual magic? Seriously? The most broken thing in Mage?
>>47069829
>You can't do much Lasting shit either now, because no, that's too broken.
Thank fucking christ. It's the reason i never ST'd more than like two mage games without huge houserules because it was so godamn easy to just fuck everything using that
>>47070041
So fucking make it Probability instead of Fate?
That same problem is in Demon with the Lucky Break embed.
Angels are supposed to be able to know embed-equal powers, no?
So, what are some of your preliminary house rules that you've figured out?
Mine so far:
>Imbued Items do not cost Mana to use unless the spell they cast costs Mana.
No-brainer here, the Mana cost completely ruins imbued items as a viable anything.
>Primary Factor for all spells is Potency. Players may reduce Potency to raise any other spell factors on a one-to-one basis, in addition to taking dice penalties as normal.
Too many good spells get gimped by shitty base spell factors (Forces 5 and Scale being the operative example). Since most spells' Primary Factor is Duration, RAW your choice is basically to have a spell that fizzles after a few turns or lasts for days beyond what you needed it for.
>inb4 "anon is butthurt mages aren't supreme anymore"
>>47069888
They'll probably be back in Signs of Sorcery, with the rest of the "you haven't spent the exp, but want to reach to higher mechanics" rules.
>>47070041
Not this guy, but....
Dude, really? "It's supposed to fuck things up, so deal with it" is the best you could come up with? Is it not obvious that if some sort of power demotes PCs to the roles of volitionless statists in what's supposed to be their own story, it's NOT something you would want to be bringing to the game?
>>47070006
Time called, why aren't you assassinating all your PCs before they even grow up to be mages?
Mind 4 Seers dropping instant-kill mind control spells from sympathetic range. etc.
The game has always been like this, with enemies "pretending to be retarded."
>>47070089
No one wants the arcana if Probability. We don't want Entropy from Ascension again.
>Republican Ted Cruz officially suspends his campaign after losing the #IndianaPrimary
HOLY SHIT DAVE WHAT DID YOU DO!?
>>47070065
>>47069983
>>47070004
>>47070029
If duration is the primary factor, you get up to your arcanum in free shifts up the table. If it's potency primary, you can spend a reach to swap it to duration.
>>47070065
No, I haven't read that and I can't find it in my copy of the leaked pdf either. Page, please?
>>47070065
No, I'm not defending it. I've just highlighted that "It always was like this" isn't a fair argument, since it effectively wasn't. It wasn't a problem since no one had to deal with it and we have to, now.
>>47069888
So your complaint is that your specific splat's gimmick build isn't accounted for in all of the one book that's been almost released for 2e.
Talk to your Storyteller about converting the character so he keeps his distinctive traits. It was always going to take some hacking to update an ongoing game to the new edition.
>>47070113
They have finally made Fate magic affect fate, and people are bitching that it affects fate too much. What the fuck.
>>47070114
And that was one of its problems - you had to focus on not noticing this discrepancy and not thinking about "Hey, if I could do this, other guy could do that too."
Or you could say that this thing is what actually keeps the mage on the "street-level" - not the teethless Paradox or laughable Hubris, but the overwhelming threat of being actually NOTICED by some of the bigger mages. Did you not hear of Multiple Assured Destruction?
>>47070114
>Time called, why aren't you assassinating all your PCs before they even grow up to be mages? etc
Except in my games I will assassinate the PCs with Time 4 if they aren't protected from the enemy who can do that, and consider it fair if someone does it to me when I didn't protect my character well enough.
If your GM is nice and prefers to hold your hand -- it's not the game's fault. I prefer NPCs I create and interact with in the games of others to not be stupid.
>>47070209
Maybe because "affecting fate wholecloth" should not be availible option for player characters? Because it makes everything else errelevant, fucks with agency and makes writing plot for the game fucking NIGHTMARE?
>>47070184
P. 114
>>47070209
I've been rather unhappy with Fate from day one in 2006 but couldn't do much about it.
>>47070289
And this helps me to offset a -10 penalty how? It's capped.
>>47070114
My character was killed by an instant kill Forces spell by a Praetorian Seer because they fucked up and left some blood on the ground after an altercation with Seer pawns.
I felt it's fair, and the cabal got revenge for that.
>>47070285
Doesn't magic do that in general? How do you handle time mages? Just ban Acanthus right away?
>>47070273
>>47070353
So then why are you bitching about it now?
Either you were fine with being insta-killed with no real defense (in both your cases I can name ways where the enemies were holding back; the "leaving a bit of blood" was unnecessary for the Seer to kill you) or you aren't.
>>47070314
Because you can apply yantras as well?
>>47070371
Precognition is vague and could be interesting to play against - especially if you have precognition of your own - but even if not, seer usually could not predict everything, for it is stated in the spell's description that time is mutable.
Temporal Lifeline is Time 5, so something met not that often, and when it is, well.... 5 dots tend to fuck the game up, yes, but even then you could still fight - enemy does not authomatically knows who you were - or anything that he did not witness, really. You still have a chance. And timetravel beyond that is archmastery.
>>47070395
In most cases, your defense is evading notice, and a lot of things could be countered with creativity and preparation. Fate determinism, though, could be countered only with another Fate spell - otherwise you will be "doomed to fail" no matter what. At that point, what's even the point of playing?
>>47070519
>In most cases, your defense is evading notice, and a lot of things could be countered with creativity and preparation.
Nope!
Seers have a weak enough withstand connection to every individual on the planet that all they would have to do is have or have a friend with Space, intensify the sympathy with "whoever spoiled my plan" or "whoever is plotting against me" and they could annihilate them at will.
>Fate determinism, though, could be countered only with another Fate spell - otherwise you will be "doomed to fail" no matter what. At that point, what's even the point of playing?
And Time can only be defended against with another Time spell.
Without Time to defend, you won't even notice that your timeline is being monkeyed with, since (to you) things were always that way, and it's especially true for the Time assassination, since not even Time actually gets to defend you from it; casting a spell on a version of you that wasn't a Mage yet means there's no possible magical defense.
>>47070584
Well, space/mind/whatever shield, veiling that hides you? It's difficult, but possible, and it's thrilling to thinking through nuances of a life in such a society.
Let me get this straight: in 2e you could SOMEHOW cast spells at the past before the archmastery?
>>47070658
>Well, space/mind/whatever shield, veiling that hides you? It's difficult, but possible, and it's thrilling to thinking through nuances of a life in such a society.
You can't possibly keep it up as long as he can keep up the counter-weight, especially since he's the stronger mage. He only has to get the sympathy in range long enough to cast the kill spell.
>Let me get this straight: in 2e you could SOMEHOW cast spells at the past before the archmastery?
That's the only possible reading I could get out of the Temporal Sympathy attainment? Cast a healing spell on someone's past self, and it retroactively applies.
should direct damage spells be withstood?
I am really on the fence about this. On 1 hand, it is a lot harder to space snipe someone to death. On the other, sensory ranged spells(1 reach) can't be dodged, meaning that if a mage has built themselves for murder spells, they can spam 3 bashing damage attacks every single turn(for a while, at least until the paradox adds up) as long as they have their dedicated tool.
On the third hand, if direct damage spells are withstood, you need to take like a -10 penalty to attempt damage on most moderately tough baddies, making rotes literally the only way to go.
>>47070519
Well, good news! In 2e, you can go back scenes at Time 3!
>>47070658
Temporal Sympathy lets you cast into the past as spacial sympathy lets you cast across the country.
>>47070744
I mean, there are plenty of other ways to hurt someone then just a direct damage spell.
>>47070584
The doomed to fail also doesn't make you automatically fail. Fate spells don't actually force you to do anything. The environment around you just pushes you one way or another.
Werewolf superior.
Mage inferior.
>>47069651
Addiction would be good. If all it gives you is a bit of bashing/lethal healing at the cost of, say, willpower, I think that would be perfectly workable. Talk to your ST about it.
>>47070954
Reminder that werewolfs in non human form have no genitals
>>47071085
werewolves in gauru have no genitals
other forms they have everything (supersized)
>>47071118
You could use quicksilver flesh for that, right? If you were hanging out in Gauru?
>>47070114
that kinda stuff doesn't make for fun stories though :(
>>47071010
Thanks for the Input. Surprised someone answered because of all the Mage talk.
>Temporal Summoning
Temporarily raising the dead.
Man that's disturbing.
"Hey Frank, I don't have enough juice to go for very long, so you've got 1 minute to tell me everything you know about the guy who killed you."
>>47070314
ritual casting to the maximum, a couple of fellow mages or sleepwalkers giving you extra die through helping rules, yantras...big spells require big effort.
I feel like a lot of people's problems with Mage 2E are that you can't whip out extremely powerful spells at a moment's notice.
>>47070658
>Let me get this straight: in 2e you could SOMEHOW cast spells at the past before the archmastery?
If someone has already Ascended they vanish from the Phenomenal World's past. But you could fuck with a second-degree master's pre-Awakening self, conceivably. It wouldn't be easy but you could do it.
Temporal sympathy can be difficult to work against.
>>47071085
That is not explicated in the text! Fat gauru cock can be as canon as your ST wants!!!
>>47070695
>>47071242
Well gee, now aside from the Space-sniping we have TIme-sniping? I could barely contain my excitement at the news.
No, I was talking about 1e, where things were, you know, less Continuum. Here? Well. It appears that that now playing with wibbly-wobbly ball of temporal stuff is inevitable, seeing how it's sympathy.
>>47070861
Yeah, just like bullet that pushes in your skull technically does not make you authomatically dead.
>>47071171
NP. As a player in a long-ish running Hunter game I've found that supernatural abilities tied to Willpower are a GREAT limiter on mortals with abilities.
I know that my telepathic/recently telekinetic college student ends up scrambling for willpower refreshes pretty often if it's a session where I'm burning through it for psychic shenanigans.
>>47071366
If anything takes away player agency, it's mind. Mind 2 let's you totally dominate someone, order them to commit suicide even. I take it you haven't actually read through the whole book, though.
>>47071411
but out of curiosity why do you think taking medicine cost will power? Maybe for every week or so without the pills cost a willpower point to power through the addiction? So every pill bottle has enough for say a month but if I want to use it to heal damage It lowers my supply and I wont be able to get more till I contact Cheiron HQ again.
>>47071468
Problem is, with Mind, there's a lot of safeguards against that kind of shit. Inborn resistance(resolve), relevant merits, prime armour(in 1e), mind armour, the works. I once made a dude who could have soaked mind sword of our cabal's mind master with his sheer grit and willpower - no magical shields needed. Domination is discrete happenstance - you could be quickly subdued by your buddies and counterspelled by your mind mage. Fate, though, is overarching and oftentimes is unnoticed, since it works through environment. And no, I did not read the book completely, I just read the thread.
>mfw late again
>>47071580
Then I don't even know what you're complaining about. The fate spells make opportunities appear to get people to do things. The closest thing you can do to control a PC is change their aspirations and/or obsessions. Fate is coincidental more than anything.
>>47071673
Yeah, it's a concise way of doing all those buffs it used to have.
lots of oaths and geases
>>47071763
Those look really good, and feel thematic.
>>47071763
Surprising amount of spells let you make sleepwalkers.
>>47071490
I was thinking of it in game mechanical terms. Most supernatural abilities mortals can get in CofD cost willpower to activate, and Cheiron abilities are usually implants rather than pills or medication.
So, willpower to activate your regeneration organ. The pill idea would be another way to fluff it but the actual regenerative abilities should cost willpower imo.
>>47071805
So with multiple -10 castings to permanently give a human a supernatural merit and then alter it up one, you could give regular humans stuff like biokenisis?
>>47071944
it wouldn't be that hard
it's a reach and -10 for indefinite duration, but you'd bring that up with yantras and sacraments
more reach for whatever potency you wanted
it's actually one of the easier spells, unless you wanted to do something like cast it at range, which would be stupid
Interactive mage charactersheet WHEN???
Okay so help me understand something because im an idiot. You can increase the primary factors of a thing by steps by taking penalties. So lets say a spell lists duration as its primary factor, then by taking a -2 penalty when casting you can take it from one hour to one day. Lets say i instead want to increase the potency of said spell, or some other factor, how do i do that?
>>47072058
you'd need reach for both of those (standard duration is countedin turns, you need to reach to advanced duration to get it to hours/days)
though you get a bonus on the primary factor depending on your arcana dots
>>47072058
spend a reach to change the primary factor to potency so you can get some free boosts to it. Everything else can be increased one step at a time at a cumulative -2.
>>47072017
I fucking wish.
>>47072017
tomorrow
>>47072119
right except you don't need Reach to just increase potency (using reach to get advanced potency makes spells harder to dispel)
so Reach to transform duration from Turns to Days
then juts penalties to deal with increased potency and how many hours to days
>>47071988
It's only -10 if you're increasing to that point from -0; otherwise, it's just -2. Plus, it's a Reach *and* a mana, on top of the Reach to use advanced duration tables.
>>47072228
I hadn't seen the primary spell factor bonus, that's nice very easy spell considering the powerinvolved
>>47072228
A mage may relinquish a spell, removing it from the spells
counting against her Gnosis without canceling it. The player
can spend a Willpower point to leave the spell as though cast by
another mage. Without maintenance from the caster, the spell
may go awry if left for very long periods. At the beginning of
every chapter, the Storyteller rolls one die for every Reach the
spell used above the caster’s free Reach, or a chance die if it was
within her limits. A dramatic failure means the spell skips the
roll for the next chapter; success grants the Storyteller a Reach
as though the spell had gained a Paradox; and an exceptional
success ends the spell, canceling its remaining Duration.
When a mage dies, all of her spells are immediately relinquished
as though the player spent a Willpower point.
just had an hour long argument with my brother about weather this would make mage society into a police state.
He thinks this would mean that no one would ever kill another mage because the paradox(or any other effect they have to set on their death) would be like a bomb going off. They would rather keep everyone in prisons or under mental effects then let someone die.
I think mages would still do what they want.
>>47072529
Everyone would still do what they want because people in the World of Darkness don't usually make good decisions
>>47072529
>I think mages would still do what they want.
its really hard to keep mages locked up, because of magic and you need to feed them and make sure they have air and a toilet and that just gives them time to ritual spells
and thats not counting outside factors like their cabal or slaves that might come to break them out
and you have a prison full of angry mages waiting for someone to smash open
plus if you really hated a guy and thought you could get away with it why wouldn't you try and kill them?
Alright, people who have read the PDF, can you rank the paths from best to worst?
>>47072620
1. Your least favourite
2. Your second least favourite
3. That kinda mediocre one
4. Your second favourite
5. Your favourite
>>47072678
>favorite with a u
>>47072620
They're all awesome. But Acanthus are story breakers.
>>47072705
>"GM, I'm going to roll to go back 2 minutes and shoot the bad guy in the head when we didn't know he was the bad guy"
I'm kinda inclined to agree
So, it says that you can spend Willpower to increase a resistance attribute used for Withstanding a spell, but it doesn't actually provide the bonus. I think it would provide a +2, but I might be missing something.
>>47072883
+2, like any other use of spending Willpower to increase a resistance attribute, yeah.
>>47072865
Yup. I fucking love them.
For a mage Obsessed with past lives and reincarnation, should Death, Time, or Fate be the greatest priority?
>>47072908
Like spacial sympathy, except instead of across the country, across the ages.
>>47073116
Fate.
>>47072908
I'm terrified of ever running Mage just because of how little I grasp the Time stuff.
>The more a subject has changed in the intervening time, the harder it is for a mage to look back at it but the easier it is to affect that sympathy itself.
>>47072865
Here's a couple of ways to resolve this
>"The bad guy casts Universal Counterspell"
>"It turns out the area is warded against Time magic"
>"You go back in time, but he notices the duplicate you and opens fire"
>Let them do it, because the most they could do by travelling back two minutes is save an NPC they value that got killed in the reveal, meaning it's an NPC you could use as leverage later on, and have the bad guy get away anyways
>>47072017
Tomorrow, when the game actually comes out.
>>47073207
>advocating shitty GMing
>>47073164
i'm running a Sundered World one-shot in a week or so. No word on if anyone is going to play Acanthus but if they do, god help me.
Now that Mage 2e is more or less out, is anyone looking to host a game for it? I've always been interested but have no one to play with irl so am willing to try online games.
>>47073344
I'm still spitballing ideas for my 1960s Mage chronicle, but I'll probably recruit from here and the forums of anything comes of it.
STing Mage fucking terrifies me. Why can't it be simple and straightforward, like Hunter or Mummy?
>>47073464
Because it's a game about occult weirdness whose selling point is creative use of ad-hoc magic powers.
>>47073464
Well, I'll be checking the thread hoping to join up if you decide to run it. been pretty bored of life, and got excited reading the new book.
Is mummy really straightforward? it seemed pretty complex when i skimmed through the book
>>47073464
It's a challenge but it's doable. One of the things to expect as an ST is that one should actually expect Mages to do things the hard way. A Mage is the kind of person to magic the power off instead of just smashing the circuit breaker. The key to a good Mage game is kind of like the key to a good Fiasco game: high ambition and poor impulse control. An NPC in a Mage game has one, the other, or god help us all, both. And that's before we get to the ones with magic powers.
On the topic of games we find hard to run, that's Changeling for me. I just can't get my head around it. Maybe 2e'll be better for me in that regard, we'll see.
look at how ripped this jawa is.
>>47069486
>I was so hyped, so much of the book is awesome, and then they shit the bed so very hard.
If so much of the book is awesome then houserule the bedshit parts.
>>47073810
1) Matter isn't necessarily your Ruling arcanum (it's not a prerequisite, and it's not the ruling Arcanum of the legacy itself), which is the only way you get Active Mage Sight for free.
2)
> If it must pierce any form of supernatural concealment, it automatically scores successes equal to the mage’s Matter dots.
I like the book and find most of the complaints about it boil down to "I'm angry Mages aren't literally omnipotent and trivially capable of overcoming everything right out of cgen, also I have absolutely no imagination and can't create any uses for my magic that aren't the most direct tools possible"
>>47073854
They're pissed that they can't go on about Mage supremacy as often anymore.
>>47073854
>Prime 2(Knowing)
This is Truth
>>47073882
Mages are still the strongest splat so far released in 2e. Their power is extensive in scope and extreme in scale. It's just not literal omnipotence, and not every Mage will have that power in every field.
>>47073912
>Mages are still the strongest splat so far released in 2e.
they aren't
>>47073947
They absolutely are.
>>47073947
Thrysus can deal aggravated damage to rank 2 or lesser spirits at Spirit 4 and aggravated to rank 3 or lesser at Spirit 5.
stealing awoo thunder.
>>47073990
Anyone can use a bane, dumbass.
>>47073990
>no good healing, no good way to get mana, no good armor
Beasts are better
>>47074061
I can't see a Beast beating a Mage. Maybe by spamming Behold, My True Form!, given it is broken bullshit, but I wouldn't be sure.
>>47074085
Then you haven't read either book.
>>47073990
>stealing awoo thunder.
are you unwaare werewolves have the same mechanic? and ways to boost their honorary spirit rank to affect rank 4-5 spirits?
being a thrysus with spirit is finally worthwhile, its other arcana that phlpbpbpt
>>47074105
I've read both. Beasts only have a few useful combat powers, and they're all Nightmares. BMTF is their #1 power.
>>47074124
>>47074105
>>47074085
Why are we arguing when we could just Fecht it? Let's pick a powerlevel, state out a Beast and a Mage using those parameters, and have them duke it out. I don't think it'd prove anything but it'd be something different from the usual arguments and it'd be like playing by proxy.
>>47074124
>Beasts only have a few useful combat powers, and they're all Nightmares. BMTF is their #1 power.
Basilisks touch alone kills most mages.
Dragonfire, Limb from Limb.
Even Siren's Treacherous Song can kill a mage in one shot.
The player rolls Presence + Expression – Stamina as an
attack against everyone in earshot except the Beast and her
broodmates (resist with the highest Stamina rating among the
targets). This attack ignores armor and any form of supernatural
protection that does not shield the victim’s senses. A successful
attack inflicts 1 lethal damage per success, with the Beast’s Lair
dots as a weapon modifier. Anyone who takes damage from
the siren’s scream suffers the Deafened Condition in both ears
until the wounds are healed. The shriek also shatters any glass
in the immediate area.
>>47074165
can i use something besides a beast?
>>47074191
>Basilisks touch alone kills most mages.
Melee is a fool's game.
>Dragonfire
If there's one thing Mages rarely have cause to fear, it's fire.
>Limb from Limb.
See above.
BMTF is a ranged power with no defense that can be applied twice per action and easily deal high double digit damage.
>>47074223
>Melee is a fool's game.
It's where mages suck the most.
>If there's one thing Mages rarely have cause to fear, it's fire.
You mistake mages for mages with forces.
>BMTF is a ranged power with no defense that can be applied twice per action and easily deal high double digit damage.
You really haven't read it.
IT's a single action that can be used once per turn, is defended against with Stamina and requires eye contact
And because of the satiety cost it can only be used once for any useful effect.
>>47074277
>You really haven't read it.
You haven't read Nightmares close enough.
>IT's a single action that can be used once per turn,
It's a Nightmare, which means it can always be used with You Can't Wake Up, which means it hits twice a turn.
>is defended against with Stamina
Which will never be a sufficient defense.
>and requires eye contact
Trivial. People don't walk around and stare at their feet while fighting.
>And because of the satiety cost it can only be used once for any useful effect.
This is completely wrong.
>It's where mages suck the most.
It's where everyone sucks the most because melee is inferior to ranged.
>You mistake mages for mages with forces.
And you mistake Beasts for Beasts with specific Atavisms. Obviously, we're discussing theoretical combat-built entities designed to compete with a member of another splat.
>>47073505
Mummy has a massively high initial barrier to entry and then becomes very simple once you learn what the hell the game is about.
That part of the process only took me two years!
>>47074277
>>47074322
>We're talking about combat characters designed to fight the other splat
>READ: This is only ever going to end in a stalemate or a close fight(excluding obviously situations where the devs tossed the balance out the window)
>>47074355
>>READ: This is only ever going to end in a stalemate or a close fight(excluding obviously situations where the devs tossed the balance out the window)
The most broken Beast shit doesn't compare to the most broken Mage shit, so Mages win.
What Path do you think this person would awaken to?
>The character is someone who exudes an aura of world weariness. He was a janitor for a while on several spooky occult chans and sites and saw some fucked up shit there. Hes a cynical dick but at heart wants to help people and has a altruistic streak. Hes the kind of person who drinks shitty fucking coffee and sits in the corner on his lap top in a shitty coffee shop chain. Hes tried thousands of rituals and spells that were hokum, but kept on trying despite failure until one worked. After Awakening hes still a recluse, but hes been forced into becoming aware of the world around him. Shits fucked and these Seer assholes seem like the unholy spawn of every shitty Demigurge post and power tripping mod hes seen. Not the mention the spoopy bullshit preying on people. Hes no good in a straight up brawl, but hopefully through being a clever shit and his own magic he can even the score.
>>47069888
Well thats actually cool. I apologize for calling you a little shit fuck, you were right.
Also I don't see a reason your storyteller can't let you keep that merit.
>>47074381
Moros. Definitely.
>>47074381
Obrimos is the first one that springs to mind. A desire to wield the big powers in defense of what he believes to be right.
Moros if the recluse angle is the bigger deal for the character. Plus they're also interested in being revolutionaries, in their own way.
>>47074216
Sure! We could do a whole 2e Fight Club, there's enough splats out for it now. There's a whole variety of builds to pit against each other for no good reason other than monster fights.
>>47070064
Just apply the poison tilt at a high degree.
So; aside from the genuine criticism levied at Beast.
Would you guys use Begotten or Heroes in your other Chronicles games?
If so, how would you use them and for what game?
>>47074456
begotten?
>>47074456
I really, really liked Sleeping Beauty. I'd adapt her for Mage or a Mortals/Hunter game if I wanted to do something weird with the Astral Realms in either of those.
I don't really know enough about Heroes in general or Beast as a system to comment further :(
>>47074496
one of the three names for Beasts.
Nobody actually calls them Beasts (cept maybe offhandedly by Heroes)
The three names are The Begotten, The Children, and Beasts
>>47074456
>Would you guys use Begotten or Heroes in your other Chronicles games?
I suppose I would, no point in not using the book.
>If so, how would you use them and for what game?
Promethean, as examples of how even humans can fall off the path of humanity. By seeing how they both cast their Mortal lives away, the Promethean can learn more about the human condition. Prime Argentum material.
>>47074456
>Would you guys use Begotten or Heroes in your other Chronicles games?
I'd use Beasts as NPCs and PCs in the games of other lines, where the plot focus is on another splat but the Beast is involved.
I might use Heroes now and then as non-Hunter humans who show up and make problems, chasing after beasts. Getting involved in other people's business.
>>47074496
Fancy speak for Beast. Like Willworker, Kindred, Lost, Uratha/Forsaken, etcetera. The books would get really redundant without a handful of epithets.
>>47074456
I'm thinking about making my Mage Mystery centered on some Silent Hilly stuff, which would maybe be represented as the Primordial Dream bleeding through into reality for people who are Supernatural.I don't actually know if that's how either of those things work.
>>47074498
I really like Sleeping Beauty. I've liked her even since the first draft, where everyone thought she was being punished for being a rape victim who fought back. Even if that had been true, that's pretty intriguing. She was someone who lashed out at people she thought wronged her simply for being *like* the person who did. That's some "a black man raped me, so black men deserve to die" levels of fucked up. But she's also a scared girl in a coma, which doesn't make that right, but it does make it interesting. It was the kind of grey morality I love. But everyone ignored it all and focused on "she's a victim". I can't remember whether the "have to be Integrity 3 or less" part was originally there or not. I seem to recall that being changed? I hated how everyone ignored the implications, even when "not through seeing the supernatural" was added (though personally, I don't think it should matter how you got fucked up, just that you're fucked up).
Either way, it was interesting because, yes, she *was* a victim, lashing out on perceived injustice by a group similar to the person who harmed her.
I remember the final draft being a little more... toothless, I guess? Less ambiguous, and more "Save the princess, even as she's trying to murder you".
I also hate that people were willing to go the whole "all vampires deserve death" route to overlook that Sleeping Beauty was complicit in what amounts to several vigilante murders and making the blanket statement that all spoopy monsters are murdering rapists.
>>47074609
it actually kind of can so long as theres someone or something causing the bleed. As it stands in Beast's core there is nothing saying it can or can't. So go with what you feel.
>>47074630
It's less the bleeding part and more the Silent Hilly part. I just know the Primordial Dream is the nightmarish part of the Astral. If I recall, Hollywood has a lot of Astral bleed through, with people being possessed by the concepts of movie stardom or something like that.
Here I'm thinking something more like people touched by the occult end up being the Key to Verges into the Primordial Dream and being tormented by their own guilt and stuff like that. Not necessarily things they've done wrong or need to be punished for, but aspects they feel they deserve to be punished for. A sort of Jacob's Ladder type of Hell.
>>47074695
That sounds pretty rad.
Is Ghost Familiar a thing?
Been shooting the shit with one of my players (>>47074381, who's thinking Moros Libertine fits) and he's thinking his /x/-phile nerd might have awakened when he accidentally summoned a ghost instead of a succubus. He suggested she might show up from time to time, and I remembered the Ghost Familiar merit.
>>47074783
Hopefully it will be. I'm going to have to read a bit more to figure out how to handle it, or if the idea as-is works.
>>47074934
>is Ghost Familiar a thing?
Yep. it's in Summoners, should be easy to port to 2e.
>>47074934
Familiar now cover Goetic, Ghost, and Spirits rather then just spirits.
So yes Ghost familiar are a base thing in 2E.
>>47074963
Unnecessary, as >>47074980 points out.
>>47074980
Ah, good.
>>47074963
Yeah, I figure even if it's not an explicit thing that it'd be easy to make.
>>47074277
Mages have absurd defense, so hitting them in melee is a challenge, actually.
>>47075210
Even ignoring their Defense, Mages are hard to hit in melee. Most people aren't stretchy enough to punch a dude flying in the air.
So is anyone else struggling to come up with character concepts for Mage? It's the line I have the most difficulty with.
>>47075210
Ooh Noo! Mages are as hard to hit as every other 2 splats!! What ever will we do?!?!
>>47075281
It's hard to argue being squishy is a Mage problem when they are actually pretty hard to hurt once they get 3 in an Arcana. Seeing as how most people will start with that, Mages essentially start the game with 3 defense plus some other benefits.
Which arcana would this be?
>>47075388
Space, obviously, linking your hand and some girl's face.
>>47075229
Nah. I find it pretty easy. Just take a concept and go "and then they become a wizzard".
For instance, that character idea I mentioned of an Ada Lovelace/Matrix inspired character.
"Supernatural detective" is pretty much Mage in a nutshell to begin with, so all those Constantines and Dresdens and so on are good Mage fodder.
You could even have a Mage inspired by other splats. I had a Mastigos who was afraid of Mind because he was a Ventrue's bitchboy. He was also inspired by Assassin's Creed and was an Interfector with a wrist blade.
Look over the Paths/Orders and choose something that focuses on one aspect. I've mentioned that transgender Alchemist before. She was based on the way Moros are all about Change. One thing becomes another. Hammers break, hammers mend.
She was also just based on taking a Moros stereotype and applying it to a pop culture subversion of the same stereotypes. i.e. the Perky Goth. That kind of thing works good for Mage when you give it a bit of depth (and then sand the depth away as you become Mad).
You can also look at the Legacies and choose which one you want. There's only the one for now, but plenty of inspiration in 1e. You can also go another route and think "what Legacy could I build?" And Legacies are all about obsession and metaphor, like with Baseball. You can type "Zen and..." into Google and get some ideas of how to build a Legacy concept.
Starting with their Mystery and what type of things you want to focus on is a good one, especially if you're creating a character just to get a feel for character creation. Focus on the aspect of the setting you like, whether it's the Astral or summoning or alchemy or something like that.
Hell, you could make a Mage based on Mummy concepts, if you really wanted to be lame and put Mummy into all the other WoD splats.
>>47075368
Yay but other splats have ways to boost their attacks.
Vampires for example can have vigor to boost their strength, can spend vitae to boost the roll by 2 per vitae, and frenzy to boost attack.
Werewolves going into Garou simply ignore the mages skill to Defense and has a boost to their roll.
>>47075436
>Vampires for example can have vigor to boost their strength, can spend vitae to boost the roll by 2 per vitae, and frenzy to boost attack.
And then the Mage floats into the air and rains hellfire, but yeah.
>>47075449
That's a lot harder a thing to do than you seem to think...
>>47075477
It wasn't particularly difficult when I was looking it over. Forces 3 can do it.
>>47075494
If you want it to do bashing, sure.
>>47075477
Oh No they have to use ranged combat, now traumatic. or they just use any other power or ability to still attack the mage.
Vampires can grow wings to fly, use vigor to jump massive amount of space in the air.
Garou can pull chunks out of the ground and toss them at the mage, the effect is nearly identical just at a distance.
>>47075545
I suspect it would do Agg, but admittedly, it's not clear on how a Fraying Bane works to me.
>>47075545
It does bashing to most things, but fire is Vampire's lolnope button
>>47075494
How would you create fire with forces 3?
Just direct heat blasting would be forces 4, if one looks at Thunderbolt.
>>47076075
Bring a lighter, increase intensity and direct the flame. Same way you did it in 1e.
>>47076081
Oh, in that case it's simple.
Then why are people talking about Fraying attacks?
Thyrsus?
>>47076295
If any kind of Awakened, an Obrimos with terrible fashion sense.
>>47076295
Exalted
>>47076322
Exalted, Mage, basically the same thing
>>47075436
Someone did that math and if you can't overcome someones Withstand you just target the area instead. Of course this has its own problems, like being able to handle whatever you are doing or being out of range.
>>47076295
Why would you see that as anything but an Obrimos?
Can someone explain to me how people abusing high level Time magic is not broken and not a complete nightmare to manage from a story standpoint? Quite simply, how do you avoid time assassins?
>>47076370
Starting on the path to being a time assassin invariably has other time assassins come back in time to shank you before you can. As a result nobody bothers
>>47076370
any single timeline model
if someone went back in time to assassinate you and succeeded, you wouldn't be alive now to worry about it
>>47076418
Quantum Immortality is fun.
>>47076421
only if you give credence to the 'giving credence to the timelines in which you survive' clause
>>47076332
That has nothing to do with my point.
Reading through Mage 2e. Mostly positive. It didn't knock me over like Vampire and Werewolf... But there's one thing that makes me happy: The first 2e reference to the Inferno.
>>47076938
What page?
>>47076976
Page 244, when talking about the Lower Depths.
The reference is indirect, but obvious.
>>47077060
Ok, I was hoping for a different one. I found that one as well.
>>47077076
Eh. It's better than what we got in the other books of the edition. It is good to see it's still around.
>>47077095
True, true
>>47071653
>>47069397
So, you can now cast spells using Temporal Sympathy, in order to affect people in the past. So, is there anything stopping a Mage with Life 4 and Time 2 from just retroactively healing themselves during the middle of a fight? "Oh, I'm just casting a healing spell a couple of hours from now."
Is there any way to stop a Mage with Forces 4 and Time 2 from murdering you by walking into the coroner's office, and then casting a Forces kill-spell on your corpse to cause you to spontaneously combust 4 hours ago?
So, does Improved Pattern Restoration come online before healing spells?
>>47077815
The GM, and temporal causality.
If you would have died in that combat, it would have been impossible for you to have survived into the future to cast that spell.
The future is unwritten.
Same with having killed the guy.
You wouldn't be able to kill him until later.
>>47077911
>The GM, and temporal causality.
Temporal causality explicitly doesn't apply to Time magic.
>Magic defies causality; a mage who travels back in time can alter the cause of his own trip and more, the magic accounting for any contradiction caused.
>If you would have died in that combat, it would have been impossible for you to have survived into the future to cast that spell.
Okay, so he's thought of that, and he's made a deal with another Life 4/Time 2 mage in his order, that if either of them die, the other will retroactively resurrect them, and then they'll finish healing the rest of their wounds. Same net effect.
Or, let's say you're fighting the Cabal-mates of such a Mage, without him being physically present during the fight, and then his buddies start healing for no apparent reason.
>Same with having killed the guy.
>You wouldn't be able to kill him until later.
Okay, a guy walks up to you. You don't know who he is; you don't know he's an enemy. He starts casting a spell. You then spontaneously combust four hours ago.
Can someone explain to me progressive merits. For example:
> The Cartomancer Merit is progressive. Each dot is a prerequisite for the next dot. So your character cannot have the "Interpretive Draw" ability unless she first has the "Divinatory Eye" ability.
So to get it for maximum level I have to buy 1-dot merit for 2 xp, then spend 4 more points for the second dot and 6 over it to get three dots?
Or I can spend 2 xp for the first one and then simply add 2 to get the second and same for the third? I get confused by use of the word dot.
> Each dot is a prerequisite for the next dot.
>>47078058
It works the same way as Fighting Styles. Basically, think of it as a non-magical Vampire Discipline: it's an ability that takes the form of a chain of dots, and each new dot gives you a new ability.
>>47078010
It also says the future is unwritten, and Time can only affect the past.
So you've got to actually reach the future before you can cast that spell. The effect coming in retroactively.
>that Free Council picture
What is this
>>47078228
And how would that look to the people in the past? Like their friend spontaneously catching fire and dying, or their enemies spontaneously having their wounds healed in the middle of a fight.
>>47077911
Are you stupid?
>>47077815
>>47078010
I really want to know how to deal with this stuff, too. And I'm not even the Storyteller—I'm the group's Time mage! I feel like I accidentally chose the most game-breaking Arcana.
Temporal Sympathy isn't the only problem, either. Shifting Sands at Time 3 lets you rewind multiple SCENES of the game. And there's that one Time 5 spell that lets you send someone bodily back in time to just rewrite their own history however they choose. How are you supposed to use this stuff in a game in any meaningful way?
If they players use Time magic regularly to effect the past, the game's going to get bogged down in the tedium of having to replay scenes and the confusion of having to figure out how, say, blowing up somebody in the past changes the present. If the Storyteller uses time magic, it's simply going to feel unfair.
I don't know how to handle that either, man.
>>47078244
Ostentatious homosexuals lacking any fashion sense.
>>47078287
Yes, it would look like that. However the problem with that is those spells are cast from a "certain" future.
Say you cast that heal spell on yourself, but you still died. How does that happen? It couldn't.
Say you burnt the guy to death, but when you cast the spell later, you miscalculated and he only took minor burns. Same situation.
Casting spells back in time only works when you have a future vantage point from which to rely. No matter what happens in the past from your spell, you are secure in your present.
>>47078244
>that Free Council picture
Someone obviously mixed-up the art notes for the Free Council and the Whipping Boys Legacy.
Or, Libertines are all just fabulous...
>>47078336
>Are you stupid?
No, I just sound it because I don't have the correct words to explain the weird mixture of tenses we're talking in right now.
I also want to know that kind of stuff.
Do you travel physically back in time?
Do you displace your past self?
Do you instantaneously create realms in the Temenos if you bring with you ideas not currently present in reality?
The questions don't stop.
A lot of it depends on if you are a perdurantist who believes time is a growing block, an endurantist presentist, a stage theory eternalist or whatever other model of time you subscribe to
perdurantist eternalism is probably best theorized by physics
>>47077176
Which Splat is the best at Arm-Wrestling?
Okay, I've been out of the loop for a few years.
Is 2e worth getting?
>>47075436
I mean, the sidebar on p. 127 is fairly clear about the intent of the mechanics; a werewolf could certainly Garou a mage to death given initiative and a good range and a mage being unprepared. However, actually *getting* to that point is going to be dicey.
Low dot spells are pretty hefty in 2e now:
- Psychic Domination is now at 2 dots and as a rote is fairly easy to get the +2 reach (and 1 mana) to force targets to take obviously dangerous actions against themselves
- Green Light/Red Light at Time 1 is just story-level fuckery, since prep-time is always crucial.
- Time 2 + Fate 2 is the equivalent of D&D 3.x's filling a tome with explosive runes + detonate, but with greater variance, allowing the mage to pre-cast before a scene and set conditions with Hung Time to release spells
- Or, a bit more basically, Tipping the Hourglass (Time 2) lets you manipulate initiative, if that's a problem.
So there's lots of things.
>>47078411
this might also be a fun read
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~njjsmith/papers/bett.pdf
>>47078442
Yes.
Well, some good news - The Pack is apparently being prepared for release next week. I'll finally get to see the artwork for the sample Lodges; to be honest, seeing what an artist has done with my work is always one of the more exciting bits of the process.
>>47078449
I'm reminded of one of the mage stereotypes from the Demon Storyteller's Guide, p.130,
"Fragile enough when surprised, but surprising
one is easier said than done."
>>47078532
After some disappointment with Mage 2e, I'm hopeful that The Pack will clean my rpg literary palate.
I just hope the supplement is not lost among the Mage discussions. Although I'm eager to read it, waiting more than a week between its release and that of a major (a delayed) new corebook might have been more prudent from a marketing perspective.
>>47078351
>No matter what happens in the past from your spell, you are secure in your present.
That only applies to the Time mage himself, though. You have complete freedom to change other people's past as much as you want, and their present will change with it.
Likewise, there's nothing stopping an enemy Time mage from writing you out of existence just as easily. Even if that Time mage is your own son, him killing you before he was born doesn't affect him physically in the present—his present self is secure against his own magic—but it DOES affect everyone else.
And even that is a liberal reading of the rules, I think. Technically, it only says your present self is secure against your own meddling via time travel. It doesn't say that spells cast with temporal sympathy follow the same rules—so, theoretically, you could argue that lightning bolting your mom before you're born kills you too, but physically traveling back in time and shooting her doesn't.
>>47078449
And even if you kill him, his friend with Time 3 can just re-wind the fight and kill you in the past. :^)
Is there a moros legacy that gives mind?
>>47078571
Yeah, I'm actually glad it's coming out next week rather than this week; Mage 2e is rightfully this week's big event for the ChroD and I'd be sad for The Pack to pass unnoticed in Mage's splash!
I'm also pretty damn glad Mage is out as well, even if I only wrote a relatively small portion of it. It's a great game that I had a lot of fun playtesting.
>>47078632
It's sad that people used to say this about Mages in 1e, even though it wasn't true then—and now in 2e you actually can do it.
>>47078660
What part of Mage did you write?
>>47078477
Neat, I'll pick up the core book this week or next, then.
I'm gonna read up on Beast now and see if it's up my alley.
>>47078706
I did the invisible entities rules - so mostly tweaking and adjusting them to match word-count pressures, as well as some Mage-specific text framing said rules.
>>47077815
Ok, so this is going to be difficult to articulate (like all time-travel-related-shenanigans) but I'm going to try.
>is there anything stopping a Mage with Life 4 and Time 2 from just retroactively healing themselves during the middle of a fight? "Oh, I'm just casting a healing spell a couple of hours from now."
Yes, and it's called "the advancing present."
Pages 185-186 in the new core explain (pretty concisely IMO, which is a feat considering this is time travel we're talking about) how Time works in Mage. The current time your player characters are experiencing is the Present. The Present is the point in which all of the things that happened in the Past converge, and after which all possible Futures extend. The book uses a metaphor of a spinning wheel for this - the Past is already spun thread, the Present is the point at which the thread is being spun together, and the Future is still unspun.
What this means is that while a Time Mage can change the Past from the Present, his "future self" can't change the Present, because his future self DOESN'T YET EXIST. He may possess nearly infinite potential future selves, but none of those selves can actually do anything to effect THEIR past.
The Past can be changed from the Present, but the Present can't be changed from the Future. Effectively, it's impossible to directly experience the effects of Time magic - you can only HAVE EXPERIENCED it, because the Present can't be affected by Time magic.
So in the instance of the combat, your Time Mage would have to have actually lived through/experienced that fight in the Present before he would be able to, in what would then be the Present, use Time magic and heal himself during the fight, which is now his Past.
>>47078743
That's good and proven stuff. It's a shame anything had to be cut, and hopefully much will be expanded in later supplements.
I was curious whether you wrote any of the new Arcana, Attainments or spellcasting rules. A lot of that material is inconsistent in quality, tone and raw substantive capabilities. It's really obvious that a lot of different writers were involved in various parts, and concerns for internal balance abound.
>>47078708
>American McGee Alice
The Beast in the that is Dr Angus Bumby from the sequel, I know he would probably be a Collector or Tyrant but I have no clue what Family he belongs to, maybe the Namtaru.
>>47078772
A fuckin' hate time travel.
>>47078813
Some of the changes I made were fairly straightfoward ones - like shifting the different Manifestations for Gateways into the Underworld and the Shadow into one 'Gateway' power, etc. Claimed rules sadly had to make way, but as DaveB has said elsewhere, they're far more relevant to Werewolf than they are to Mage so it was a regrettable but viable loss.
I think a lot of the issues people are having with the Arcana and spellcasting side of the game will shake out over the next week or so as people get to grips with the game a bit better, figure out the details and specific interactions of the rules and free themselves from any 1e preconceptions of how things 'should' work.
>>47078842
No, I hate time travel, have always hated time travel, and will hate time travel.
>>47078859
>I think a lot of the issues people are having with the Arcana and spellcasting side of the game will shake out over the next week or so as people get to grips with the game a bit better, figure out the details and specific interactions of the rules and free themselves from any 1e preconceptions of how things 'should' work.
You give /tg/ too much credit.
>>47078870
Ah, but WILL YOU HAVE HATED time travel after I travel through time to change your mind?
>>47078870
>No, I hate time travel, have always hated time travel, and will hate time travel.
By 2e rules, this should be:
I hate time travel, have always hated time travel, and, depending on what happens in the future, may or may not hate time travel and/or have hated time travel.
>>47069486
All of 2e nWoD/CofD sucks. Stick to 1e. You'll be happier.
>>47078813
Granted I've only had a day or so to look through the rules, but I really don't understand why some people have had this reaction.
What's so "inconsistant" about the new rules? Everything seems pretty much in keeping with how 2e was being described during development. If anything it's far more consistent than 1e was.
>>47078772
Except that to the Mage in the Future, it's their Present, while our Present is their Past, which means that they can use Time magic to retroactively kill us.
>>47078943
>What's so "inconsistant" about the new rules?
There is no more mage supremacy.
Can I Dio Brando in mage?
>>47078859
I agree about the claimed rules, If you cannot devote enough space to fully expound upon a topic, keep it simplified or leave it our rather than do a half-assed job. People who really wanted claimed or more spirit stuff can pick up Werewolf, and I expect a large overlap among Werewolf and Mage fans. The lack of Claimed in the new core does not detract from the book's quality.
I'm not as confident as you about the Mage 2e magic system "shaking out" in a few weeks." Some of the rules questions will certainly be answered and explained, but the power disparities and complexities will remain.
It's obvious that at the very least Mage 2e needs a grimoire-type book or something similar to Mage20's "How Do You Do That."
I also don't believe I can ever forgive Dave for now requiring Life 4 to heal lethal damage, and thus denying the ability to all starting characters.
