Mike wrote:
Just wanted to pop in, in regards to this:
Quote:
To be fair, I can make an arete 2 mage (completely starting spheres) who can kill a rank 3 garou in a few rounds of casting (from a safe location no less).
Do be sure to note that when casting any effect that counts as an extended action, each roll will take from several minutes to hours. It's pretty absurd to allow a Mage, during combat, to take 9 seconds to add up 3 Arete rolls (spending WP on each) into a single big-ass fireball (or whatever). I've talked to Bill Bridges, who was the last developer of Mage Revised, about this specific thing, and he said that sort of thing was never intended to be allowed. This is hinted at a bit on p. 217 of Mage Revised, but they never outright stated it because they thought it obvious that you can't really cast a ritual in the middle of combat.
This will probably get more explicit treatment in M20, since it seems that a lot of people seem prone to abuse extended casting by using it during combat.
Of course, that's not to say that you couldn't sit in your Sanctum and cast an extended ritual over the course of a day with Forces 3, Correspondence 3, and blow the smithereens out of someone from afar. Paradox would still smack you, but unless you run with alternate Paradox rules, you can shrug that off pretty easily.
This is not accurate to canon in 3rd edit. While I know this is forum necromancy, I just found this recently and read it. Anyways, extended actions in MtA (and extended magickal feats) are not the same as long winded High Rituals. In 3rd edit all magick in which the mage requires more succ than he can acquire in a single roll pushes the feat into an extended action (note: this is different than high rituals, however...high rituals are by their nature extended actions, just longer...slower ones and there are added gains for high ritual)...but a mage can, and does roll per turn if needed to complete an effect. This is explained in Pg. 217 3rd edition MtA core. To quote:
"In any extended action, you roll the character's dice pool multiple times. Depending on the circumstances, you may end up rolling once a turn, once a scene or even once a week."
"For the game to be enjoyable for everyone it should not always be bogged down with endless 12-hour rituals or similarly lengthy tasks. Time-pressure and the need to act quickly should keep extended actions from intruding unduly on the most intense or action-packed portions of the game."
Extended Magickal rolls is covered on Pg. 150 of the 3rd edition core and seems to imply turns to hours, and in a combat situation where flinging a fireball requires succ spent to Effect (damage), Area, or Duration (if it keeps burning after the impact)...we start talking about required succ no mage smaller than arete 5 can even do..at all. (and as we all know that certainly makes the big bad flambeau who ran around fighting wars with the tremere a little impossible to do, the hermetics didn't fight the massassa wars from their chantries, given tremere pop off their effects with a up to 10 dice pool, in one round, flinging a fireball back taking minutes to achieve is not how canon is intended.)..nowhere in the mage book (outside of high rituals in the guide to the traditions) is this implied. In fact in the heat of combat, its certainly implied a mage can push it to pull off an effect with needed successes in turns (which I might add 2 turns to pull of 1 effect is a lifetime of risk when there's garou using rage actions that are whipping out bajillions of agg in one round). In the end the time taken on extended actions is not meant to stop combat from actually happening magickally. And the time limitor of extended actions is meant to be nebulous based on the action you're performing, and thus up to the ST's discretion....complex creations, weather-witchery, strong curses, Node-drainings, Horizon Realm Creation, etc: These obviously take time...But Kamehamehaaaing up a fireball in 2 rounds is equally possible (just like its equally possible to punch the mage in the face while he's trying to cast it and so much as jostling him, much less breaking his nose could utterly destroy the effect). I'm not certain where you acquired this information on revised mage, Mike? Do you have a page reference which explicitly states extended rolls for an effect must take minutes to complete per roll? cause I am not finding this. I am finding turns-hours, depending on the circumstance and ST's discretion.
M20 actually made life on mages all the easier. Now, mages don't even receive a punishment for a vulgar effect in the form of a backlash until they reach 5 paradox (or the ST forces them to roll before that limit). And to boot no matter WHAT the effect or spheres were, any successful vulgar effect garners you -only- 1 paradox. Further, in M20 if the mage has violence as a focus, his Attack roll and magickal roll happen in the same round...making violent magi some of the ultimate badasses of magedom, and makes Martial Arts nigh broken in the things it can do in the hands of a magus with forces and a paradigm that allows violence in his repertoire. M20 only continues in disagreeing with this minutes per roll vein on pg.539:
"Essentially, a ritual allows you to roll until you get the
number of successes your mage’s Effect requires. In game
terms, a ritual might involve extended rolls, several turns, and
a series of actions, possibly with several different tools involved.
No Hermetic wizard, for example, would dare summon an
angel without the proper sigils, purifications, invocations, and
ceremonial instruments. Some rituals involve brief activity,
and others can take hours or even days. The optional Rite,
Ceremony, and Great Work rule (see below) reflects the
different time periods a ritual might require, as well as the rolls
and successes involved in such rituals."
Unless the ST operates under the optional rules, extended magick is turn by turn, not minutes, in M20. Admittedly on pg.413, with violence as a focus, you can foergo succ to target, and simply burn everything into effect in combat, but worse still, with violence as a focus, it becomes a simple Attribute+Ability to hit, and Arete for damage(or other odd effect), very very nasty effects get pulled off in one round (good luck hoping to stun the mage out of zapping you to dust there).
This all said I stand by my earlier statements.. Mages may be squishy, but mages can prepare better than anyone else in the world of darkness. They're more flexible than anyone else in the world of darkness, and even if you hamstring them more than canon intends, they will still be able to pull off effects nobody else can. One must be VERY VERY careful about adding mages to a mixed chron where the focus is especially upon garou. While a mage may easily be splattered by a simple swipe of a garou's claw. Heaven help the garou who tries to hit the mage with skill in life, forces and spirit, or knowledge of violent practices. Especially if you use M20 rules.
Admittedly, Bill Bridges may have nor intended what came of it, but the wording in the canon doesn't ban it, one must wonder why he didn't make it explicit? Because Phil Brucato certainly expounded upon just how easy and quick extended magickal feats can be. In fact slowing things down is now an -optional- rule.
But even still I stand by my statement, At arete 2, with forces 2 and correspondence 2, and a sanctum...in both revised and m20, a magus can rageface a garou of any rank....beware adding them to chrons with groo as the central focus.
