New Storyteller has questions

Given that Improvised non-ruling Arcana spells cost one Mana to cast, if a Mage casts 24-hour Mage Armour from a non-ruling Arcana, does this cost 2 Mana? One for the 24-hour duration and 1 for the Improvisation?

Also, if a Mage casts Exceptional Luck on himself and rolls 3 successes so that his next 3 rolls have the 9 again property, does the Exceptional Luck effect (ie. rolls waiting to be taken) count against Spell Tolerance?

Yes and Yes

Johnny Awesome:

Given that Improvised non-ruling Arcana spells cost one Mana to cast, if a Mage casts 24-hour Mage Armour from a non-ruling Arcana, does this cost 2 Mana? One for the 24-hour duration and 1 for the Improvisation?

All mana costs are cumulative. If an Instant spell costs more mana than a mage can spend per turn, than it cannot be cast.

Johnny Awesome:

Also, if a Mage casts Exceptional Luck on himself and rolls 3 successes so that his next 3 rolls have the 9 again property, does the Exceptional Luck effect (ie. rolls waiting to be taken) count against Spell Tolerance?

Any spell that a mage casts upon themself with a duration other than Lasting counts toward Spell Tolerance.

Thanks.

Another question: If you are doing a ritual (extended casting). Do you get the High Speech bonus on each roll?

Johnny Awesome:

Another question: If you are doing a ritual (extended casting). Do you get the High Speech bonus on each roll?

Yes, if you spend the extra 15 minutes to chant before each roll.

Wasn't it 30 minutes?  I'm not with my book, but I vaguely remember it being 30 minutes.

Possibly.   I just pulled 15 off the top of my head.   Let me go check....

[Cue intermission music]


Page 117 confirms that you're right.  Its a 30 minutes extra.

Ophidimancer:

Wasn't it 30 minutes?  I'm not with my book, but I vaguely remember it being 30 minutes.

For extended casting, the mage must spend 30 minutes chanting to gain the +2 dice bonus. M:tA p.117


although now I have to ask, I thought this was a 1 time thing, chant for 30 min ahead of time, and your rolls are affected, I didn't think it was required for EACH roll. I just kind of figured they chanted for 30 min ahead of time to start things off, and they were assumed to continue chanting as they continue to cast the spell.

teloric:

although now I have to ask, I thought this was a 1 time thing, chant for 30 min ahead of time, and your rolls are affected, I didn't think it was required for EACH roll. I just kind of figured they chanted for 30 min ahead of time to start things off, and they were assumed to continue chanting as they continue to cast the spell.

I didn't really envision the acts being separate, I just saw the added chanting making each roll 30 minutes longer.

It seems to me that the 30 minutes each roll would be a better balance.  After all, you can keep going with that ritual, building up a pretty obscene amount of successes.  Ritual spells tend to pack an extra punch, and are typically done in the safety of a sanctum or well out of danger range.  As such, if you were geting an extra 2 dice per roll, it'd become a pretty potent spell much more quickly.

Here's a related question that I may have simply forgotten or overlooked the answer to.  Can you mix and match the chanting into the ritual and out?  FOr example, lets say you chant for your first roll to give yourself a good bonus.. and you get enough successes that you don't worry about chanting the next roll.  After that roll and the next don't do so hot, can you start chanting again?  Or is it a "To chant or not to chant" situation, all or nothing?

Cleverest of Things:

Here's a related question that I may have simply forgotten or overlooked the answer to.  Can you mix and match the chanting into the ritual and out?  FOr example, lets say you chant for your first roll to give yourself a good bonus.. and you get enough successes that you don't worry about chanting the next roll.  After that roll and the next don't do so hot, can you start chanting again?  Or is it a "To chant or not to chant" situation, all or nothing?

I would say its a case by case basis.  I mean as your Gnosis increases you can take less time between rolls, but if you make the concious choice to hold off, take a little extra time to put the High Speech into it, you are risking running into the exhaustion range of extended actions.

So deciding half way through, as you have been doing very well to weave several successes ahead of your projected schedule, you decide to pull down a little more effort for this next verse of the song of your spell to give it a little more oomph....seems reasonable to me.   Or you could just as easily say "meh, I'm doing fine, I'm not going to tire myself out when I could just weave the spell normally from this point on and be reasonablly sure of success.

But then this comes from my viewing of how the rolls of a ritual spell work out thematically.  I always visualize spell casting as gathering up strands of light and energy and sound, and sculpting them into the various shapes and sigils required for your spell.  The actual moment that you roll the dice (whether that be once/hour or once/5 minutes) is the moment that this portion of your spell has been constructed properly (you hope), and ready to be inserted into the tapestry of your spell.  Assuming you don't botch the roll, the sigil is then woven into the overall spell, and then you proceed with the next portion, repeating the process until the necessary successess have been achieved.  

So in my mind using an extra 30 mins to chant in High Speech would give that one particular sigil weaving more focus and strength, but that there is nothing stopping you from not doing the same emphasis on the next sigil.

teloric:

although now I have to ask, I thought this was a 1 time thing, chant for 30 min ahead of time, and your rolls are affected, I didn't think it was required for EACH roll.

This has never been specified officially to the best of my knowledge.

Our group has simply gone with the '30 minutes extra for +2 on all the rolls', simply because the book just says the ritual requires 30 minutes more, not 30 per roll. Also, at the level they started up rituals took so long time that 30 min more per interval would make it prohibitively difficult. Heck, after 2 years of playing they're still leery about any ritual-usage, mainly because we're VERY focused on the realism of living a real life while also being a mage. Ritualizing everything means you have to skip classes or miss out on a date with your girlfriend. If it was more loose and easy I'd probably do the 30 minutes per roll for balance reasons alone.

In the end, this is one of those "every ST has to decide what works best for his own game" type of situations.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Here's another question: How many of you guys use the To The Limit rule from ToM? How unbalancing is it?

Johnny Awesome:

How many of you guys use the To The Limit rule from ToM? How unbalancing is it?

I use it for a short period of time while a new mage is Awakening, to represent the wildness of a newly Awakened mage.

Johnny Awesome:

Here's another question: How many of you guys use the To The Limit rule from ToM? How unbalancing is it?

I haven't used it yet, but i do plan on it when I run my upcoming mage game.  I think its a great rule that gives a mechanic for the classic example of the mage who through sheer determination, will, and outright pissed-offedness, draws down a mystical can of whoopass that he normally would not be able to do.  I think I might restrict it to improvised spells only, and not to ritual magic. To me it always felt like doing something like that is too much of a strain on the mage to maintain it for several hours, but an quick blast of uber-magic would be doable.

Although I guess you could assign some penalties to the fatigue checks for extended actions?  Maybe have them kick in at 6 hours instead of 12 if you are doing a To The Limits ritual spell?  That might work...hmm.