Very destructive indeed...

pson:

Acctually he has attained mastery of space... and his dice pool is fairly high. so most of those penalties wont bother him much...

A master is supposed to be able to do crazy things.

pson:

How can one not increase sympathetic connection through scrying, if you have been watching a place for weeks through cameras or scrying windows you should get familiar with the place...

Sympathy isn't just degree of familiarity, it's the strength of a mystical connection. Normally, simply becoming more familiar with something naturally increases that connection. When you scry, though, you're already using your mystical connection; you can't naturally stuff a stronger connection through the weaker one. It's like trying to fit a wider pipe through a narrower one. That takes magic.

Let's go with the analogy I used before. Imagine that a weak sympathetic connection is like a thread, and a strong connection is like a rope or a chain. Casting a sympathetic spell is like pulling on a thread that's attached to something until you pull it close enough to touch. Scrying on something and expecting that to decrease your sympathetic range is like attaching a heavy chain to a thread, and expecting to be able to pull it closer. It won't work.

Zoe:

The spell New Threads doesn't need to be combined with Scrying to be casted. If you want to strenghen your connection with someplace (the Marianas Trench in this thread), your only need to cast New Threads sympathetically, since the objetive is the Marianas Trench.

If you're saying that New Threads can be cast at sensory range, but needs to be combined with Scrying to target the Marianas Trench (unless you're there...), I agree. If that's not what you're saying, please rephrase.

Zoe:

If the ST rules that New Threads is patter altering, then you will need Space 4 to cast it simpathetically anyway.

Which, along with the need to combine the casting, would bump it up to 5.

I wouldn't call it a pattern altering spell, though.

djarb:

That's a very nice idea, if you can teach the spirit how to get to where you want a connection, and how to recognize something that is likely to bear a strong sympathy. Those are total ST calls.

None of that stuff is very hard, unless the ST desperately is trying to keep you from making it work, of course.  Its not necessarily practical, of course, but not particularly hard either.

I'm the player in question.

Bill Bridges, Mage developer:

Portals aren't open windows that allow things to passively pass from one side to the other. The things passing through must do so with some degree of volition, and objects (and people) must be intentionally thrown through (they don't just go through on their own, such as a rock that happened to be rolling in front of the Portal, or a whole ocean waiting to leak out through the new hole in Space).

This response I can accept. Seems resonable.


Now for sympathetic connection... lets see I have 13 or so dice, the ability to cast new tread and the ability to scry on the creatures found down there (seen in the movie).

Unless reduced to a chance roll and I don't think -13 is likely to happen anytime soon.

Besides the whole thing is just a last resort, kinda "Not another step or we both die"

Holden Butcher:

djarb:

That's a very nice idea, if you can teach the spirit how to get to where you want a connection, and how to recognize something that is likely to bear a strong sympathy. Those are total ST calls.

None of that stuff is very hard, unless the ST desperately is trying to keep you from making it work, of course.  Its not necessarily practical, of course, but not particularly hard either.

It would be hard in my game as a matter of course. Spirits are weird, they don't think the same way we do, and most of them aren't interested in cooperating beyond what you can compel them to do. They certainly don't understand Sympathy. On top of that, they'd actually have a pretty difficult time getting there.

Yes yes I know... But if it was possible to use even as a last resort then 4-6 city blocks would dissapear in a watery death every few months or so... "Veil? never heard of it..."- mage living in a mostly destroyed new york ;P

Welcome!

Bomaz:

lets see I have 13 or so dice, the ability to cast new tread and the ability to scry on the creatures found down there (seen in the movie).

Sounds about right for someone who's mastered Space.

So you scry on the creature, and most likely find out that it doesn't exist any more. If you also have Time, you'll probably find out that in the 15 or so years since the movie was taken, that creature died or was eaten. In that case, you can still use a Described connection to members of that species... which in conjunction with Fame gets you a -13 or so on your roll.

Say you get lucky, though, and it's still alive, and unchanged enough that the connection is Known instead of Described. You can cast New Threads and bring that fishy-thing to Intimate... and now you have an intimate connection to a fishy thing. That doesn't really get you closer to having a doomsday weapon.

Bomaz:

Besides the whole thing is just a last resort, kinda "Not another step or we both die"

You're a master of Space. Why not just say "Not another step or you die?" After all, you can cast Worlds Collide, which means you can teleport the poor sucker into the nearest lamppost.

you forgot new thread. Gives me a reduction of the penalty sufficient to let me do it.

note: this discussion is tecnically over and I'm doing it just for fun since the issue is settled

djarb:

If you're saying that New Threads can be cast at sensory range, but needs to be combined with Scrying to target the Marianas Trench (unless you're there...), I agree. If that's not what you're saying, please rephrase.

You can cast New Threads sympathetically without the need of a Scry providing, of course, that you have another sympathetical connection with that place (the stone that water spirit brings, per example).

I think the mechanics works like this (if not, please correct):

If you can try to open a scrying window there, then you have some sympathetical connection with that place, otherwise you cannot cast (lets say you have -10, described). Then, you can cast New Threads to decrease the penalizer, and you cast with -10. Instead of that, you can try to use Scry (with -10). If you succeed, then your connection will go up to -4 as long as the Scry last (the connection becomes known as long as you can see the place). Finally, you can cast New Threads sympathetically, now with the -4, to decrease the penalizer even further so you can Scry again with a better roll. No need to combine spells here.

Why not get a comfy pillow, settle in for a long trip, and cast Angle Vision to send your senses down into the Trench?  It might take awhile, but you won't get many penalties, and then, having seen the bottom of the Trench with your own senses, you'll have a sympathetic connection to it.  Or you could take a rock, break it in half and drop it in the ocean.  Then, when you think it's hit bottom, you can scry to it from the other half.  Again, you won't take very much penalty and you can then make a Portal to its location.

Don't worry, such small magic probably won't get noticed by the magic eating tentacled horrors that exist on the bottom of the ocean.

Ophidimancer:

Or you could take a rock, break it in half and drop it in the ocean.  Then, when you think it's hit bottom, you can scry to it from the other half.

Or use "New Threads" on the rock until you got the connection you like, then drop the stone inte the ocean.

Ophidimancer:

Don't worry, such small magic probably won't get noticed by the magic eating tentacled horrors that exist on the bottom of the ocean.

And you can't even run, because you're on the boat!

djarb:

Third, the Marianas Trench is famous (as is the moon, and other places where people try to get crazy with Space effects), which means that its fame rating counts as an additional penalty against using sympathetic magic on it

I don't think that places can get the effects of the fame merit, you don't get the downgrade for not knowing the name of the place so why take the penalty for being well known?

The sidebar in the corebook discussing the effect of fame on sympathy specifacally states that famous places and objects impose penalties the same way people do.

The way fame affects sympathy is supposed to be that something famous has a huge number of sympathetic connections (albeit weak ones) to it, which creates a kind of "static" which makes it harder to establish a strong connection for a spell. The need to know the true name of a person whom you are trying to establish a connection to is something of a mystery to the setting, but is probably based in the idea that you cannot truly be connected to a person if you do not know the thing which defines their identity to them. Places, animals, or objects might have names, but they are only names given to them by thinking beings; they are not names which the animals, places or objects acknowledge for themselves (not being alive/sapient and all) and thus they have no such protection.