Alternative rules for sorcerers and chiminage for Mage: the Ascension

 Good LORD that last post took it out of me. In fact, the last several have been pretty humungous. Time for something a bit shorter... my houserules for sorcerers and chiminage in Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition, which should be readable in about 5 minutes.

Obviously, sorcerers, static magicians who can't do mage magic (and mages can't do their magic) have rules. Several sets, in fact. But it always irked me that those sets make them follow fundamentally different rules to mages, such that if a sorcerer becomes a mage you're left awkwardly converting their Paths or whatever into Spheres. It's this, I think, that leads so many people to become frustrated and ask r/WhiteWolfRPG 'why can't mages just use sorcery, anyway?' to snippy responses. If one set of mechanics felt like it flowed more naturally into the other, if sorcery felt like limited sphere magic but without paradox rather than an only semi-related system, it might happen less. Or not, but I like my solution anyhow.

Whilst we're at it, I've also got some quick guidelines I use for chiminage, deals with spirits, which help avoid Spirit becoming the do-everything Sphere, so I'll share them too.

From Rawpixel's stock images. This is very much how I think of WoD sorcerers: even if the Order of Hermes is actually cool people with swords, there are always some folks in pointy hats and starry robes hanging about

Sorcerer rules:

A sorcerer is treated as a mage except for the following changes: 

• Sorcerers lack Sphere and Arete ratings. They may not have the Avatar background.
• Sorcerers may neither store Quintessence in their pattern (without a specialized Sorcery) nor gain Paradox. Sorceries which allow them to manipulate Quintessence may be used.
• A sorcerer may only perform Sorceries, pre-defined pieces of learned magic like more fixed Rotes, which they buy with XP. The cost of a Sorcery equals half the XP cost of all of the Spheres required to use it. At character creation, sorcerers are built as Mages but swap all of their dots in Spheres for 2x that number of 'Sphere dots' worth of sorceries. (So a Sorcerer spending no Freebie Points starts with 12 dots of 'Spheres' to invest in sorceries.)
• When a Sorcery is defined, the specific practice and instruments needed are defined and remain fixed. Sorcerers do not require a Paradigm, though as most mortals, they have one.
• Instead of rolling Arete to cast, Sorcerers roll Intelligence+Esoterica (appropriate tradition). Difficulty is always treated as if the Sorcery were a Vulgar with Witnesses Effect. Successes are spent to improve effects as normal. All normal dice modifiers may be added. Ritual casting works as normal. Botches normally do nothing.
• Sorceries may be made cheaper to learn by applying flaws to them, each of which reduces the cost by 10%. Flaws include:
• Botches are treated as a Paradox Backlash with (total 'Spheres' required for the sorcery) dice.
• A particular expenditure of successes (extra targets, duration etc.) may not be used.
• The Sorcery requires a unique component.
• There's a limit on the maximum successes the Sorcery can accumulate, starting at 10 successes and going down from there to 7, 4, then 1 with multiple stacked flaws.
• Where a Mage may be given some leeway with what their magick can reasonably achieve, the Storyteller should always be strict with the effects of static magic. A sorcery does what it says it does plus any reasonable consequences of doing that in a specific context.
• Sorcerers may only learn Sorceries from other Sorcerers or Mages with a shared Practice. If learning from Sorcerers or Mages in the same organization as them or a near-identical practice for other reasons, the cost of a Sorcery is only 1/3 the Spheres normally required.
• A Sorcerer who Awakens begins with 1-3 Arete; the vast majority begin with 1, but a rare few awakenings (determined by the Storyteller) are more powerful. The Sorcerer loses access to Sorcery (experiencing the proverbial mystical 'dark night of the soul' where certainty seems to fall apart around them as they do,) but gains access to all of the Spheres used in their Sorceries, up to what their Arete will allow. They treat all of their past Sorceries as Rotes for casting purposes, including those they cannot use with their current spheres.
• OPTIONAL: A sorcerer who Awakens retains all of their Sorceries and may cast them in the old, Static manner, but they now incur Paradox as per normal magick. Not my preference, but easy enough to do.

Chiminage:

Chiminage is the process via which Mages bargain with otherworldly beings.

If a Mage wishes a neutral Spirit (i.e. one with no desire to give the mage something for nothing) to do something for them, they must do something in return. Tot up the total XP required to build up the Spheres needed to do the task asked of the spirit from nothing. We'll not be using any Archspheres system, so just treat anything the Spirit must do that no Mage can as costing what a 6-dot Sphere would. Be generous with conjunctional spheres here - even if you normally call for lots, that can make the price spiral wildly. If you're using more than 3 to calculate a chiminage value, it's probably time to rethink.

XP value per sphere:
1: 10
2: 18
3: 34
4: 58
5: 90
Beyond spheres: 130

Of course, the Spirit might ask for more if they're stingy or less if they're kind, but this is our benchmark. 

Now, the Mage owes the Spirit that many XP worth of tasks. That is, they owe the Spirit actions the XP for the abilities required for which equals this total. (So for example, promising to catch and kill a dragon is worth the XP it'd take to get from 1 Dex, 0 skills to the PC's (plus any guaranteed allies') Dex+primary combat skill values, plus whatever skill might be most useful in locating the dragon, plus anything else essential i.e. dots of Artifact for a dragon-slaying blade.) 

Some caveats and complications:

• The value of a skill is based on what the PCs have if it's suitable, not the minimum that is suitable. More competence is worth more.
• Chiminage may be built up before calling on a Spirit by doing things the character is sure they'll value. This involves placating and making offerings to the specific spirit/court/etc., not just generic 'use of and respect for spirits in your practice.' Make sure your research on their preferences is accurate if relying on this.
• A day of pure menial servitude or of minor rituals of thanks, the kind a character with 1 in all their stats could do, is worth 1 XP.
• A task expected to take more than a scene is worth more xp. Up to a week = x2 base value, up to a month = x3, up to a year = x4, more than a year = x5, a lifetime or more = x6, eternal = x7.
• Some items and actions of great Resonance can be of value to spirits far outstripping their apparent potency. For example, a devil telling a pure-hearted Templar to stab an unconscious innocent in exchange for help saving the world isn't asking them to do something physically hard. The base cost here would be the Templar's Willpower value (required to bring themselves to do it), but that doesn't tot up to much compared to the magnitude of the deed. To represent this, every dot of desired Resonance generated by a desired action, or attaching to a desired object or person, counts for 8x(dots of resonance) XP. (See the Book of Secrets on Resonance). For example, a goodly knight of God committing such a heinous act would probably be worth 4 dots of Resonance, maybe 5 if the person was close to them, so the Templar can generate 32 or 40 XP worth of Chiminage on Resonance alone - which will quite substantially impact the overall cost.

Work out what task/item/whatever the Spirit is asking for out of that set of things. Then you can make rolls to negotiate around that using normal negotiation difficulties (probably quite hard), threshold successes etc. on pages 402-4. But this is the basic offer, and if the Spirit doesn't like your counter it's liable not to show up for you in the future, or at least to hike its costs.