Talk:Ascension Nova Mage Template

Hey people, first of all, congratulations. "Reawakening" Mage the Ascension is a HUGE job, and you're very corageous. :-]

So, to the point: I was skimming through this page (that's the first time I see it), and I took a look specifically at the favored spheres.... and I think I would change some of them.

Here are my opinions:

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Akashic Brotherhood

Favored Spheres: Mind, Life -> Change to Mind, Prime


 * Motive: Shapeshiftng, shapeshifting others, and the similar are a quite big dimension of the Life Sphere... in my opinion, Prime suits them better, because of the "Chi Control" parallel/paradigm.

Inferior Sphere: Matter -> agreed. Even low-level Matter transmutation is kind of "not-very-Akashic". But... what about Death? Maybe it's even less Akashic (since I think they have some kind of oriental Alchemy background, if I'm not mistaken, and if that occurs, that would cover Matter effects). Don't know.

Celestial Chorus

Favored Spheres: Prime, Fate -> Interesting choice. Reading "Fate" as "prayer", "blessings", and "curses", I think it's really perfect for Choristers.

Inferior Sphere: Death -> I'd change it. In judeo/christian paradigms that may make sense, but what about african religions, egypt cults, voodoo-like priests, and Spiritism? These may be allotted as Celestial Chorus, if the base of their paradigm is centered on the "divine channel" aspect of their praxis and beliefs. So, i'd change it. let me see... I think maybe I'd choose Space as inferior Sphere, I don't know for sure.

Cult of Ecstasy

Favored Spheres: Time, Mind Inferior Sphere: Forces -> tough call between Matter and Forces. I love to play/storytell Cultists, but I think it's kind of hard to deal with these 2 Spheres for them. Since we have the option of rotes that function based on "alter your perception, alter the world", I think Matter is a little easier to deal than Forces... so, I think I agree.

Dreamspeakers

Favored Spheres: Spirit, Life -> very good choice. Inferior Sphere: Matter -> this is difficult to analyze. But OK, looking to the other Spheres, I think I go with you.

Euthanatos

Favored Spheres: Death, Fate -> I knew this was coming =D Inferior Sphere: Life -> Hmn, I do not really agree with this one. I think they understand Death, but also understand Life (and can use this knowledge in practice). What about Forces? Thy do not seem to be very versatile in Forces.

Hollow Ones Favored Spheres: One of Choice -> VERY clever call :-]

Inferior Sphere: None -> VERY clever call [2], hehehehe :-]

Order of Hermes

Favored Spheres: Forces, Prime -> Perfect. I'm even tempted to change their order: Prime, and Forces. Control of "Pure-Magick", you know? :-] Inferior Sphere: Life -> I'd change to Time. Motive: I think Hermetics are better at healing, shapeshifting, brewing potions and the like, than at manipulating Time as something "fluid".

Sons of Ether

Favored Spheres: Matter, Forces -> Perfect. I longed for that in Ascension. :-] Inferior Sphere: Spirit -> I don't know... I can imagine Etherships and Umbrood Ether-Rays, but i'ts difficult to imagine "Necro-etherships" (despite "Proton Cannon Ghostbuster-like Tech" being kind of easy). I think I'd go with Death, but you should think about it.

Verbena

Favored Spheres: Life, Fate -> very good call. Inferior Sphere: Space -> I don't know. Scrying on the water pool, fast traveling and the like, even teleporting in some "Druidic" way seems kind of OK to me... I'm tempted to go with Mind (since their craft is kind of "Primal", sensation, instinct, and the Verbena paradigms I've seen in-game did not lend to weel to Mind). Even Matter doeen't semm a very good choice to me, since Water, Earth and the like are Matter. Oh, and please: remember to solve the "Wood" problem, ok? Verbena and Etherites (and the others) must know if Wood is Life or Matter. =D. I have no definite answer, since "talking to animals" is Mind, to me.

Virtual Adepts

Favored Spheres: Space, Mind -> Wow, unexpected (silly me). Yes, that makes sense. Very good choice. (Until I thought about Mind, I was thinking about Fate and their "Theory of Chaos" branch... but rememebring the Digital Web and similar concepts, I think Mind really may be a great choice). Inferior Sphere: Life -> good call. But taking the existence of Death in your metaphisics, I think they could be worse at it, than Life :-]. (You see, they can measure and map the workings of living bodies and brains, but it's kind of hard to do with the Death-spells subjects).

New World Order

Favored Spheres: Mind, Fate (“Social Engineering”) -> VERY good. I liked this one. Inferior Sphere: Spirit -> I did not think about it too much; seems alright.

Iteration X

Favored Spheres: Matter, Forces -> Perfect choice. Inferior Sphere: Spirit -> Perfect choice.

Progenitors

Favored Spheres: Life, Mind -> Interesting, you choosing Mind. In your "RBD" that makes sense; I'm not sure about the "PBD" case (I always use PBD). What about Matter? It think that suits tem well, they may be the best Chemists in the world, right? (since to me, IT-X Matter normally tends to go to the "engineering" side of things...) Inferior Sphere: Spirit -> I did not think about it too much; seems alright.

Syndicate

Favored Spheres: Mind, Fate -> Hehe, very clever ^^ Inferior Sphere: Prime -> Man, I think I disagree. In fact, we may even argue that Prime is the basis of Syndicate, since Prime is the "fuel of existance", and that's precisely what Syndicate holds. NASDAQ and the like are nothing more than "usines" of pure faith in "what-will-become", they generate a heck of a lot of Prime, if you think about it this way (in fact, in my adventures, Syndicate characters were kind of specialists in Mind and Prime, specially the in the Ressonance and Channelling effects of Prime). So, take some time to think about it. You may just go and change their inferior Sphere, or as far as changing their favored to Mind & Prime, I don't know. I think I'd take Prime from Inferior, and put another one. What about Matter? Or Forces? They are one of the most Covert factions in existance.

Void Engineers

Favored Spheres: Space, Forces -> Don't agree... man take a look: what about Spirit and Space? (in this order). They are good at Space, yes, but Adepts are a little ahead. But no one understands the "Dimensional Science" paradigm of Spirit in the depth that they do. Inferior Sphere: Fate -> I'm kind of lost on this one. But thinking a bit, that makes some sense; they do not dabble to much on causality and the like. I think it's inrteresting to analyze other options, and make a decision.

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That's it!

Mage (Ascension) is my favorite game, and in fact, I can say I "studied" it for a long long time, and runned a lot of adventures (I think that's your case too)... so these are based on my personal experiences while Storytelling with/to these various factions (specially Mage: 2nd edition).

Well... that's it! Hope that may be of some help... have a good work!

(Frank Malcher)

189.81.114.127 20:12, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

This looks really awesome, and I am very excited to be monitoring it.

However...+2xp/session is really not the kind of benefit you want to have in an X-splat.

Hm... Tambov333 10:54, June 30, 2011 (UTC)
 * Euthanatos->Seat of Death (Frees up Fate part of Entropy.)
 * Choristers->Seat of Fate (Frees up Prime.)
 * Hermetics->Seat of Prime (Frees up Forces.)
 * Etherites->Seat of Forces (Maybe. Frees up Matter. And hey, Death Rays.)
 * Add Solificati with Matter, Life (Forces(???) inferior).

Disconnect spheres from traditions
As it stands, the Traditions right now are just replacements for Paths and Orders.

I would suggest disconnecting spheres from traditions, since it never made much sense, and instead allow every player to choose three favored spheres at character creation.

Make Essences more important, because right now they seem more like an afterthought. Move favored resistance attribute to Essence, and have resonance determined by Essence. Drop Infinite essence, because all mages become Infinite essence when they near Ascension. We could replace it with a Subtractive essence, the flipside to Primordial essence. --Zenoseiya 18:30, August 12, 2011 (UTC)

KK: I'm going to leave things as they are now, but I will include a note to this effect, because we want to offer as many options with AN as we can. Part of the project was to create as close to a faithful translation to Ascension (both M2 and Revised) as we could, yet in the NWoD setting. The originak purpose I had when I started this was to get a version of Mage that was close to Ascension in the same way Requiem is very close to Masquerade. The whole assignment of Spheres to Trads is entirely arbitrary, I agree, but we need to strike a balance between reflecting the old game and giving STs options.

We could start a new page for [b]Alternative Character Creation Options[/b], that include this stuff.


 * If people want a faithful Ascension then they can play Ascension. Ascension does not fit in the nWoD at all, and you are doing both games a disservice by by forcing a square peg into a round hole. Furthermore, Ascension Nova isn't faithful, because it makes major changes. Just drop the idea of being faithful and go all out. --Zenoseiya 18:30, August 13, 2011 (UTC)