Magic in Action (Magic Vegas)

v60e continued
== Chapter 4. Magic in Action ==
This document extends the path magic system in five ways: Extra rituals, Marks of Power, Otherworld cosmology, Skepticism, and spirit taxonomy – only the last is necessay. While these modifications are straightforward, interactions between so many magical effects can get complicated. Exacerbating the issue, rituals aren’t consistent in their mechanics, nor should they be, any more than gravity behaves like magnetism. Some have effects that are margin-based, and of course Skepticism reduces effective margin at the time the Skeptic becomes aware, so there are circumstances in which a ritual’s magnitude of effect (like the bonus to DX from Grace) could be reduced but not eliminated, and margins for enduring rituals must be noted for this purpose. Some rituals have effects that are target-based, which is similar, except that it’s like calling a shot in pool: The caster takes a penalty in proportion to his desired magnitude of effect, and the ritual either succeeds or fails at that level instead of having a variable effect. In such case, the margin of success is based on the actual target, so a potent effect could be brittle, wiped out instead of reduced in the face of Skepticism. Still others, including the important Countermagic rituals Ward and Curse Sanctum, have unique rules for contests. Be aware of the Rule of 16 and its caveat (p. B349): It penalizes the attacker, but only against living or sapient targets. In other words, in contests with another ritual, the Rule of 16 does not apply. 
Some rituals have special rules for duration such that their effects can’t be sustained by a Fetish, like Chaperon, Gambler’s Token, Journeyman’s Blessing or Curse, Mystic Mark, Read Thoughts, Scry, and Spirit Slave, so be sure to check; these rituals can still be sustained by Fetish for delayed activation. Similarly, some info-gathering spells affect the gatherer, like See Secrets and various enhanced senses, while others affect the subject to be gathered from, like Aura Reading, History, and See the True Face. Rituals like those in the latter group can be sustained by Fetishes on a specific area (security chokepoint) or keep tabs on a subject long-term, its unfolding History, the changing emotional content of its Aura, or the tells that would otherwise be masked by a Liar’s Charm. 
=== Defenses ===
Curse Sanctum ends when overcome, and a charm can indicate when this happens. Conversely, Dream Sanctum and Veil continue to protect against future threats even if the present one defeats them, but they provide no feedback when this happens. Even when a curse overcomes a Curse Sanctum, its effect is delayed, so the way to defeat a Curse Sanctum is to have a followup ready. The breaching curse should have the highest level possible but need not have severe effects, so mild curses with low difficulty like Death Vision are ideal. A magician can’t have multiple Curse Sanctums (or Curse Mirrors) unless they’re conditioned to block different curses, so one with condition “Only Death Vision” and another with condition “Anything but Death Vision” are compatible. Curse Mirror is like Curse Sanctum with a deterrent effect, and “Not Against My Own Reflected Rituals” isn’t a valid condition for either. The difficulty (i.e., lower effective level) is a good reason not to use it, except for those who have mastered its Technique. The GM decides which rituals constitute curses unless the magician specifies it with a condition; -1 to reference a GUMI is sufficient, and then he can edit the white list at need. Otherwise, a toggle condition is de rigeur (also -1). A Curse Sanctum doesn’t protect the subject from an effect which he invokes himself by performing the ritual or consuming an elixir, so tricking him into drinking one might be the best way to defeat it. Stealing or hacking the smartphone with his GUMI in order to edit the whitelist works too. Remember to record the actual level at which Curse Sanctum is cast, instead of the margin, because opposed curses roll a regular contest against it instead of a quick contest. Even though Dream Sanctum and Veil use quick contests, rolling against their level in each contest provides variability instead of making an impervious defense on a critical success. 
Ward by contrast has a Power level as a parameter, so multiple magicians can cooperate to erect stronger Wards, -1 per 2 Power, meaning that the strongest have the lowest margins of success. That doesn’t really matter for this ritual, though, because it has special mechanics. Any ritual performed outside the Ward, to affect a subject within the Ward, doesn’t roll a contest with the Ward itself but takes a penalty equal to Power, and while Dispel Ritual does roll a quick contest, each victory merely decrements Power. (Remember that Dispel Ritual must come from a different path than Ward.) In theory, a spirit can cross a Ward with a Will roll penalized by Power, in practice a ST 40 spirit has Will 16 so can’t cross a Ward of Power 14 or higher. The spirit’s alternative is to wear down Power by spending Fatigue, resting, and doing it again, a process that will take hours or days, or by materializing if so capable and attacking the Ward physically, a process that only takes a minute or so if uninterrupted. A spirit bound to a physical vessel can pass a Ward freely, as in the case of Fetish, Spirit Trap, or Possession. 
If a magician is near a Ward of his own creation (or co-creation), he can Summon a spirit and compel that spirit to appear within the Ward. However, if he wishes to then Bind the spirit, the Ward must have a Complexity parameter to allow it. A spirit within the Ward cannot leave unless it overcomes the Ward’s Power, wears it down, is Banished, or gets leave from he who Summoned it. Dryads are the exception, because they can only be summoned in their loci of power, and there they can use tricks like Permeation with Melding. 
If someone is under the effect of a ritual whose duration has not yet expired, and if he then enters a Ward, the effect persists. However, if the ritual took no duration parameter because it is instead sustained by a Fetish, and if that Fetish remains outside the Ward, then its margin of success is reduced by the Ward’s Power until the subject leaves the Ward, reducing or temporarily suspending the effect. If the Fetish is born by the subject, then its margin is reduced for an infinitesimal period as he crosses the dimensionless boundary. In game terms, this means no interruption unless he is specifically immobilized by some clever stratagem such that the Fetish itself lies across the boundary. Doing this with a grappling skill requires a roll at -10 by someone who knows exactly where the boundary is (for instance if it was designed to coincide with a mark on the floor). 
A portable Ward is possible, and for that matter, any ritual with an area effect can define its area in relation to some portable object such as a thin mat which can be rolled tightly for convenient stowage. The ritual can cover up to half the area of that object, centered, which works out to 70% of linear dimension. For instance, a Ward could cover an area 3½’ by 5’ on a throw rug that’s 5’ by 7’. 
The conceptual difference between Ward and Thicken the Walls of the World is that Ward is a boundary effect (an actual wall), and Thicken is ironically an area effect. The game-mechanical difference is that Thicken doesn’t have Power per se; instead its margin of success penalizes any use of magic within, into, or out of the area. Should some magician attempt Planar Visit from an Otherworld such that he arrives within a Ward, that use is unopposed, though his spirit may be unable to depart, but Thicken the Walls of the World will interfere with arrival (and likewise for Create Gate). 
Dispel Ritual has a defensive application. Remember that it is the one ritual that can be either countermagic or channeling. One channeling application is to take down a Ward as mentioned above, and the other is to suppress worldlaw. For instance, if a magician traveled to Niflheim, he would suffer deadly curses such as Frostbite unless he suppressed them with Dispel Ritual channeled from the Path of Midgard (or any Otherworld where those curses do not apply). In this case, there is no contest between Dispel Ritual and the worldlaw to be suppressed; the “resistance” of the Otherworld manifests as parameter penalties for area and duration. One might suppose that if it can suppress a worldlaw, that Dispel Ritual could act as a Curse Sanctum limited to a single curse, but this is not the case: While the target of a Curse Sanctum is the person or object to be protected, the target of Dispel Ritual is an effect which obviously can’t be abjured until it starts. 
=== Sustained Rituals ===
Sometimes, a Fetish sustains a ritual of personal enhancement on the “bearer” and thus the beneficiary must carry the Fetish to satisfy its condition, but there’s another reason to carry Fetishes instead of hiding them in a secure location: As mentioned above, if the subject enters a Ward, it blocks any ritual sustained by a Fetish unless the Fetish is within the Ward as well. However, Fetishes which sustain a blessing on multiple agents cannot be in the location of all the agents at the same time, and when a magician has multiple Fetishes, they can all be wiped out by a single instance of Dispel Ritual with Fetish itself as the ritual to be dispelled, because they’re all in a tight area of effect. Because a spirit’s ST is a parameter penalty for making a Fetish, few have a wide margin of success that would be difficult to overcome. Countermagic can’t block countermagic, meaning that Curse Sanctum can’t protect a Fetish from Dispel Ritual. For best results, carry Fetishes and have a backup set in a secure location as well, or pay more for rugged Fetishes, or both. 
One way to sustain a ritual on multiple agents is with secondary charms; in other words, the Fetish does not affect its own bearer but instead the bearer of some token such a security badge. This allows the benefit to be transferred, but of course the transfer may be a usurpation. A GUMI can provide an editable, prioritized list of beneficiarries, but that takes a Complexity parameter, only -1 (on top of the Multi-target parameter), though it may be insignificant if a GUMI is required for other conditions such as toggling. Secondary charms do not impose a Complexity parameter, for they’re just the basis for target definition. 
If a Fetish sustains a ritual that creates or damages, it doesn’t multiply the amount of material or damage. For instance, sustaining a ritual of Conjure Flame for 1d/burn won’t inflict 1d over and over again, and sustaining a ritual of Smoke won’t keep generating more smoke as the wind blows it away. However, it is still useful to sustain such rituals, or even those with instantaneous effects, with a Complexity parameter to determine in which instant they activate, sometimes referred to as “hanging” the ritual on the Fetish. Instead of sustaining a ritual as it takes effect, the Fetish sustains the ritual until it takes effect, although if the ritual has a potentially durable effect, it will continue to be sustained thereafter. For instance, an explorer of Otherworlds might create a Fetish of Create Gate to Midgard with an activation condition upon some exclamation like, “Home!” Probably it should have some usage condition as well, so the danger encountered on the Otherworld can’t follow, but if sustained after activation, it can be used to re-enter the Otherworld at that same point. 
When a sustained effect requires control, it takes a Complexity parameter. This could be a word or gesture to toggle it on and off, a mixer to address multiple conditions, an active controller, or some analog to follow. For instance, a Phantom could show a miniature replica of a ballroom and all the people in it, like a closed-circuit camera but in 3 dimensions and with no device detectable in the ballroom even with See Secrets. The usual mixer in modern times is the GUMI, and while it can handle only a few conditions, these can be edited, for instance a white or black list of people or rituals to allow through a defensive effect or a photo to use as a model for Guise. The GM must decide how long the edit takes and whether a roll against Computer Operation skill is necessary. An active controller is either an ERCS or a sapient being, usually the spirit within a Fetish. Of these, the ERCS has the advantage of vigilance and the trait, sometimes a benefit and sometimes a drawback, of following instructions literally, whereas a spirit has creativity and initiative, also dubiously beneficial, and might have relevant skills such as Art (Illusion) or Tactics. 
=== Stacking ===
The concept is simple: Multiple magic effects can’t have cumulative benefits (unless all of them are natural magic or all from the same Totem). Execution is another matter, as the interactions can be easy to overlook, so here are some prominent cases: 
Grace buffs DX, Vigor buffs HT, and both of these attributes affect Speed, but Grace and Vigor can’t both affect Speed; use the higher bonus. Speed determines MV which determines Jumping distance, but that magic won’t stack with Flying Leap or with Enhanced Move or Super Jump conferred by a Totem. DX and HT affect skills, so enhancing them won’t stack with other magic that benefits the same skills, like Borrow Skill, Perfect Control, Weapon Blessing, or advantages granted by Totems. The bonus from Grace may improve Active Defenses, and even Vigor can do this for Dodge, not stackable with the bonus from Combat Reflexes provided by Warrior’s Blessing. Wisdom doesn’t directly raise skills but opposes IQ penalties from Afflictions, but in so doing it doesn’t stack with Borrow Skill either, so for instance if the subject of both rituals has Artist skill 14, raised to 18 with Borrow Skill, he’d have net 16 when drunk. For combat skills, Drunken Fighting negates the penalty for intoxication but won’t generate a bonus that stacks with Grace or Borrow Skill. The bonus from Visualization (with Blessing) from a Djinn of luck doesn’t stack with skill bonuses from such rituals either; the benefit from Journeyman’s Blessing requires a roll against unmodified job skill; and the bonus from Vigor doesn’t apply to extra rolls provided by Succor to recover Hit Points. 
Warrior’s Blessing alternately raises ST by 50%, but this doesn’t stack with the bonus from Enlarge or from Power Blow. In fact, if natural magic grants bonus damage in armed combat, the bonus does not apply to dice of damage granted by magically elevated ST unless it comes from Power Blow. Enlarge can be sustained indefinitely at a level within the normal human range, raising MV and DR, and again these benefits don’t stack with other magic such as a ritual of Armor for DR. The DR from that ritual doesn’t stack with the limited DR from Endure Elements. 
Natural magic abilities do stack with each other, so for instance you can combine Power Blow with Breaking Blow, or you could use Power Blow to draw a high ST Bow and fire it with Zen Archery. However, these abilities require concentration or else a -10 penalty, and they can’t be place on hold while concentrating on something else, so when combined, at least one of the abilities used in such a combination must soak the penalty. Weapon Adaptation, typically from Guns skill if high enough, satisfies the weapon skill prerequisites for Precognitive Parry and Zen Archery, but bonuses from rituals (Grace, Borrow Skill, Obscurity) must be excluded from Acrobatics, Climbing, Dancing, and Stealth before they qualify as prerequisites for Light Walk, Lizard Climb, Hypnotic Hands, and Invisibility Art. 
=== Specific Cases ===
A few rituals have ramifications that aren’t immediately obvious, but experienced magicians will know these things even if their players do not: 
Astral Projection (and Planar Visit): Distance is no object, so you can project your spirit to any point in space, but from that point explore at normal move. An astral entity can’t perform rituals, but you could Create Warrior (or a Phantom) at that same point in space, then project to that location in order to benefit from the sensory feedback necessary to command it effectively. Sustaining Astral Projection with a Fetish, under a toggle condition, allows you to project to that same point whenever you wish. 
Bind: If you want to keep a spirit handy in a Spirit Trap, getting it into the trap uses up a service, and presumably you’ll need at least one more service when you release the spirit. Transferring all remaining services, for instance to whomever releases the spirit from a trap, uses up a service, too. Getting a spirit into a Fetish likewise requires a service, after which it will be in no condition to render any remaining services due, so if there are any, use them to interrogate the spirit for any useful knowledge it may possess, such as the True Names of other spirits you may wish to Bind. 
Borrow Skill: With this one ritual, the effect depends on the path it’s from, as the skill is borrowed from the path god, meaning anything consistent with the portfolio of the or the relevant lore. If it appears as part of the partial path of Inspiration, then it would apply to anything artistic. The Raic path of the Eye of Ra also has partial paths of Battle and Sex, so it would apply to Sex Appeal and Erotic Art, and Carousing based on the origin story of Hathor, and to any combat or military skill including Soldier and Tactics. Of course, many of these skills could also benefit from Grace and Vigor, which don’t stack, but for unarmed combat skills that give damage bonuses at certain thresholds (like +1/die for Brawling at DX+2), Borrow Skill qialifies while the DX bonus from Grace does not. One instance of a ritual applies to all specialties of a skill, as long as they’re relevant to the portfolio, so for instance a ritual from the Eye of Ra would apply to all specialties of Fencing but only the Military specialization of Savoir-Faire. 
Divination: Although they use similar mechanics, the forms of Divination matter. Those based on relatively static phenomena, such as the orbits of the planets or the lines on a palm, can see far into the future and past but only reveal long-term trends; if you want to predict where the subject will go for lunch, employ a form based on transient phenomena such as a tongue of flame. In order to work around a Veil, perform Divination on those likely to interact with the subject. As worldlaw, Divination easily overcomes Veil but only works on a subject present where that law applies or for the period of its existence when it will be present. 
Evisceration: There are deadly curses that work at any distance and don’t provoke Skepticism quite so readily, but when Evisceration works in spite of Skepticism, that justifies a Fright Check, heavily penalized. If the penalty results in a permanent Quirk, then that Quirk is Belief! (And if it results in a disadvantage, it’s a “Delusion” that all magic works, eradicating the witness’s natural defense but laying the foundation for Magery.)
Great Haste: The extra maneuver can’t be a Rapid Strike, else it would stack with a Weapon Blessing used to offset the Rapid Strike penalty. 
Lay to Rest: If you murder someone, take advantage of pathos to change his True Name and use that in a ritual to make sure his ghost can’t testify against you. 
Obscurity: With a suitable Complexity parameter, like placing it under the control of an ERCS, Obscurity can affect a narrow aspect of the subject’s presentation, such that people can interact with him without consciously noticing that he’s drunk, dressed for a Renaissance Fair, or airborne. The modifier for the ritual interacts with conventional modifiers, and anything unusual grants a bonus of up to +4, and anything not normally possible grants a bonus up to +10, so a magician who plans to Skinchange in public needs a potent Obscurity ritual. 
Thunderbolt: Compared to Lightning, Thunderbolt is awkward, but by creating a charm and secreting it upon the target, the magician bypasses any Curse Sanctum the target may have (much as if he had tricked the target into drinking an elixir). There’s no chance to Dodge physically; resistance is actually mental and penalized (Will -2). 
Ward: Magically-created things can’t survive crossing a Ward; for instance, if a gun’s bullet comes from Unlimited Ammo, it can’t fire through a Ward. The same is true of a dragon’s jet of flame or anything a Djinn creates within the Ward, and if the special effect of conjuration is transport (the default for Snatcher) rather than creation, it won’t work at all, but items stored in advance with Cosmic Payload can accompany a Djinn summoned into a Ward where they’ll work as normal once retrieved. Because a spirit within a physical vessel can cross a Ward, and because one such vessel is the ground, a Dryad is difficult to contain, escaping via Permeation enhanced with Melding. 
Warrior’s Blessing: Two separate instances of Warrior’s Blessing, one for Combat Reflexes and one for ST, would count as stacking. Given that the defense bonus won’t stack with rituals like Grace, the main benefit of Combat Reflexes is resistance to surprise, which is useless unless it’s active, but it can’t be active continuously because of the Fatigue cost. Therefore, it’s most beneficial when placed under the control of an ERCS.