Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
I've thought of a possible rote for Mage: The Ascension that I may want to use in play. I'd like to see what other Mage players think of my analysis of it. From time to time I may think of further rotes for which I want the same thing; so I'm going to make this a general topic. (For that matter, other people who play M:tA are welcome to contribute their rotes.)
The Mentor of one of the PCs is her great-grandmother. She (the Mentor) has Correspondence 2 and Arete 6. If she wants to have a look in at the PC, she can use Correspondence 2 to open a window in space through which she may look and listen. This is not level 1, but it appears to be a form of sensory magic, so I think the rules for that can be applied; it may be coincidental but will sometimes be vulgar without witnesses. So that's difficulty 5 or 6. If she uses her focus (a plumb bob and a map), the Mentor can lower this to 4 or 5, and with six dice, she expects 3.6 or 3.0 successes, more than enough to reach a blood relation or indeed any disciple.
Now, suppose the Mentor wants a two-way conversation? Extending a sensory magic to another person adds +1 to the difficulty. Normally the person would have to be within sensory range, but Correspondence 2 lets you extend your sensory range to remote places, and indeed the roll I just described does precisely that. Two people staring into the air and talking to each other will definitely be noticeable, so I think this is vulgar without witnesses (if they do it in private), which raises the difficulty back to 6, allowing an expected 2.4 successes, still enough to reach any disciple. If there are witnesses, it's 1.8 successes, which will still usually work.
So at appointed times, Moon goes into her private room, and her Mentor first casts the easier rote to get a look at her, and then casts the harder one to let them talk to each other. If this isn't a dramatic situation, I would allow just making the harder roll. In emergencies the Mentor may attempt to break in, perhaps just to say, "Moon! Moon!" and wait for Moon to find a private place for conversation; this will usually work, and spending one Willpower will let it work almost all the time (2.8 expected successes). Or she could just speak to Moon and let Moon disguise her responses as ordinary conversation with a Wits+Subterfuge roll (6 dice against difficulty 6, 2.4 expected successes).
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Correspondence level 2 will take care of 100% of the communication that you're wanting to do. Correspondence by itself, IS vulgar. What it's doing is opening a house window next to the grandmothers protege, without the house attached to the window. There's a specific rote which is Correspondence 2 and Mind 2 (I'd have to look up the name), but this makes it -not- necessarily paradoxical because now the window is in the Grandmothers mind. Consequently with Correspondence 2 and Mind 3, you could do open Telepathic communications over any level of range modifiers and no one would be any wiser for it.
Another alternative is Correspondence 2 and Forces 2. This way would also be non-paradoxical as long as observation is the only thing happening. In this case, the "Window" is there, but the use of Forces hides the window on the other side so no one can see it. Could even block sound from coming out if you wanted, but then you'd have to have Grandma come through the window a smidge to talk, or simply do another "Forces 2" roll to be adjust it so sound came out.
Modern days, everyone has a cellphone on them... Correspondence 2 and Forces 2 for the phone to ring (yes, even if it doesn't have power) and then the "Sound" from the conversation comes out the phone - non-paradoxical.