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[[house_rules|Back to the House Rules Index]] \\

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====== Casting Spells ======

Casting a spell from a path generally follows the rules from Sorcerer Revised (page 59f), with the following exceptions and clarifications:

==== Aspect ====

When casting a spell with aspects, the player declares the highest aspect of the spell before the roll (essentially choosing the difficulty). With the first success the spell has the first rank in all aspects, all further successes can be distributed to raise aspects as a player sees fit, on a one-to-one basis. This determination is made after the roll, but the player can’t raise any aspect beyond the initially declared highest aspect.

//Example: Walter the Weather Wizard wants to conjure thick fog to hide from his enemies. Creating fog requires an intensity of two, so Walter’s player Bob declares that two is his highest desired aspect and that he is using Walter’s personalized instrument for the Weather Control Path, a hand-carved oak staff. So he makes his casting roll at difficulty 4+2-1 =5. He rolls three successes. With the first success the spell gains intensity 1, speed 1, and duration 1. This leaves Bob with two additional successes to spend.// 

//As noted, making fog requires at minimum intensity 2, so that’s where one of the successes goes. Bob decides to invest the last success to push the duration aspect to level 2, making the fog last a bit longer. But Bob could not have put both successes into intensity, because that would have pushed the intensity to 3, beyond the declared highest desired aspect.//

==== Time ====

Spells normally take one round to cast, unless noted otherwise in the description of the path. That means the spell takes effect one round after the spellcasting action. Like mages, sorcerers are able to deliberately increase the casting time to gain a one-point break in the difficulty of the casting roll per additional round spent casting (to a maximum of -3). This cannot lower the difficulty of the roll below 3.

==== Extended Rolls ====

If the first casting roll didn’t yield a sufficient number of successes for the effect the player wants then he has the option to keep going and turn the casting into an extended action. Each roll after the first doubles the total duration of the roll. So if the first roll takes one round then the following rolls take one round (for a total of two), two rounds (for a total of four), four rounds (for a total of eight), etc.

Additional rounds that are spent to lower the difficulty count as part of the casting time. So if a player spent two additional rounds for a two-dot break on the casting difficulty then the sequence would be three rounds for the first roll, three rounds for the second roll, six rounds for the third, etc.

==== Mana ====

If a spell requires an expenditure of Willpower as part of its cost then the sorcerer may substitute this expenditure, in full or in part, with an expenditure of mana points on a one-to-one basis.

==== Creating New Rituals ====

The ritual creation rules in the book take too much time to be usable in the context of this game. So instead the process will be handled like this:
  - Determine the effect the new ritual should have
  - The Storyteller will determine which level of the respective path the ritual needs, and which other considerations might apply.
  - In order to create the ritual the sorcerer needs to have mastered the path in question to at least the rank necessary to perform the ritual.
  - The creation of the ritual takes one week per rank of the ritual. There is no roll necessary.

====== Unweaving ======

There are two changes to the unweaving rules presented in Sorcerer Revised on page 63:
  * Instead of Wits + Occult the pool to unweave a spell is the same as is usually used for the path in question. The difficulty remains eight. //Example: One of your companions has been turned into a duck. You wish to turn him back, so you use your knowledge of the Shapeshifting path to unweave the spell. The pool you use for Shapeshifting is Stamina + Esoterica, so you make an extended Stamina + Esoterica roll against difficulty eight to undo the transformation.//
  * At the beginning sorcerers can only unweave effects from other sorcerers and psychics. They can buy the ability to undo the powers of awakened mages, demons, werewolves, etc. for three XP for each type of supernatural, but they need to possess at least two dots in the respective splat lore. So if a sorcerer wishes to learn to unweave a vampire’s disciplines then they need to possess at least Lore: Undead 2. One exception to this are demons, who don’t have their own splat lore. To be able to learn to unweave the powers of the fallen you instead need Occult 4, and a specialty in Demonology.


====== Changes to Paths ======

===== General =====

Through the introduction of foci for sorcerers it makes no longer sense to prescribe an ability for each path. For example it would be possible for a character to assign the Hypereconomics practice to the Mana Manipulation path. Such a character might understand mana as a tradable commodity first and foremost. For such a character it wouldn’t really make sense to roll Occult for the path. 

Therefore the rule shall be as follows: The attribute to roll with each path is fixed, and can be viewed in the following table:

^ Path ^ Attribute ^
|Alchemy |Intelligence |
|Conjuration |Dexterity |
|Conveyance |Stamina |
|Divination |Perception |
|Enchantment |Intelligence |
|Fascination |Any Social (see path description) |
|Fortune |Manipulation |
|Healing |Manipulation |
|Hellfire |Manipulation |
|Mana Manipulation |Manipulation |
|Oneiromancy |Wits |
|Shadowcasting |Manipulation |
|Shapeshifting |Stamina |
|Summoning, Binding & Warding |Intelligence |
|Weather Control |Manipulation |


The ability on the other hand is not fixed. When a character first learns a path the player may select an ability from the list of abilities associated with the practice that was assigned to the path. No more than two paths associated with the same practice can share the same ability.

//Example: Jenny the Techno-Shaman wishes to pick up the art of Divination. But instead of reading tarot cards Jenny has developed a computer program that will give her glimpses of the future. This program is a personalized instrument within the Computers and IT Gear instrument category, and Jenny’s player Clara assigns the path of Divination to the Reality Hacking practice. Now Clara can choose an ability from the list of abilities associated with Reality Hacking. She chooses Computer, so in the future she will roll Perception + Computer to determine the result of Jenny’s divination attempts.//

===== Alchemy =====

Since the description in the book doesn’t make any note of the amount of potion that is produced, or the shelf life of the resulting concoctions, the following rules shall apply:
For each success rolled on the casting roll the alchemist shall gain one dose of the desired potion.
Potions shall remain viable for two months from the date on which they are finished. After that they perish and can no longer be used.

===== Divination =====

Ignore the “No Rituals” classification. It is possible to develop Divination rituals.

===== Shapeshifting =====

Ignore the “No Rituals” classification. It is possible to develop Shapeshifting rituals. \\
The first line of the Subject aspect should read “• - •••  The sorcerer can only affect himself.” \\
The first line of the Disparity aspect should read “• - •••  The sorcerer can only affect one target and must only take features from one animal.”

====== New Paths ======

The following paths are available in addition to the ones described in Sorcerer Revised:
  * [[Chronomancy]]
  * [[Dowsing]]
  * [[Illusion]]
  * [[Scrying]]
  * [[Spirit-Chasing]]
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