1. Notes

Spellcasting Reference Guide

Quick Example of how to cast a spell in Mage.  Let's Say Ana Frost a mage with Gnosis 3, Fate 4 is trying to cast Superlative Luck on herself and her Cabal.

Before you Start determine the Spell you want to cast (Fate 3 Superlative Luck) and your Mages Arcanum Level (Fate 4 for Ana).

Spellcasting Steps:

  1. Determine Reaches you want or need for your Spell
    1. Standard Reaches for Advanced Factors - Each of these costs 1 Reach:
      1. Advanced Potency - Increase Withstand Rating of  your Spell (make it harder to dispel it).  Only important for spell that last a while so your enemies can't dispel it.
      2. Advanced Sensory Reach - Without this you must touch your target or shoot an Aimed Spell (Gnosis + Athletics/Firearms) at your target to affect them.
      3. Advanced Instant Casting Time - Without this a spell takes Ritual Casting Time (1 hour at Gnosis 3) to cast.  With Instant Cast your spell takes one turn unless you use more than 1 Yantra, each Yantra after the first adds a round to the spell casting time.  IE if you use 3 Yantras your spell takes 3 turns total.
      4. Advanced Scale - Without this your spell affects small number of people or applies to a relatively small area.  You need this to affect lots of people or a large area.
      5. Advanced Duration - Without this your spell lasts a few turns, use this if you need your spell to last hours, days, months or more.
    2. Extra Reach per Spell - Each Spell may have custom Reaches that allow you to cast a more powerful version of the spell
    3. Other Reach Uses - Change Primary Spell Factor, Make a spell Indefinite, Cast Spells above your Spell Control limit.
    4. Determine Free Reach - You get Free Reach equal to your (Arcana Rating - the Arcana Rating of the Spell) + 1.  I.E. Ana with Fate 4 gets 2 Free Reaches casting a Fate 3 Spell.  (When using a Rote Yantra your Arcana Rating is considered to always be 5 regardless of your actual Arcana Rating, for the purpose of calculating Free Reach Only)
    5. Every Reach Above your Free Reach will add Paradox Dice to the Spell Paradox Roll
    6. Example: Ana Is casting this spell outside of combat (so doesn't need Instant Casting).  She's casting it on herself only (no need for Advanced Scale or Sensory Reach).  She does want it to last a while so she uses 1 Reach for Advanced Duration.  This is well within her Free Reach of 2 (Her Fate is 4 and she's casting a Fate 3 spell).  IF Ana also wanted Superlative Luck to apply to spell casting rolls, she'd also need 2 Reach as listed for said Spell.  This would bring her at 3 Reach, 1 Above her Free Reach for this spell (so she'll incur Paradox)
  2. Determine your Dice Pool
    1. Base Pool = Gnosis + Your Arcanum Level (for Ana it's Fate 4, her Arcanum level not Fate 3 the level of the Spell)
    2. Add Yantras - You can have 1 Yantra per Gnosis Level added to a Spell.  Each Yantra adds a number of dice to the Pool. 
      1. Example: Path Tools add 1 Dice, High Speech Adds 2, Shadow Names adds up to 3, Rote Casting Adds your Skill Level in dice
      2. Remember if Instant Casting each Yantra after the first increases casting time by 1 turn.
    3. Add Dice from Extended Ritual Casting Time - If you're not Instant Casting, your spell normally takes your Gnosis derived Ritual Casting time to cast.  For Gnosis 3 this is 1 hour.  Each Ritual Casting Time Interval above the first you take (up to 5) adds a die. So if you take 6 hours to cast a Spell when your Ritual Casting time is 1 Hour you add 5 extra dice.
    4. Use Willpower.  1 Willpower = 3 Dice
    5. Add Extra Dice from Spells or other Bonuses. (IE Maybe you cast Fate 2 Exception Luck to give yourself 5 extra dice to spell casting rolls prior)
    6. Example: Ana's Base Dice Pool is Gnosis 3 + Fate 4 = 7 dice.  She has Gnosis 3 so she can use 3 Yantras, she uses Material Sympathy 2 dice (a lock of her own hair), High Speech (2 dice) and Shadow Name with Cabal Theme 4 dice for a total of 8 extra Dice.  Her total Pool after Yantras is Now 15 Dice.  She Takes the full Extended Ritual Casting time of 6 hours for another 5 dice and blows a Willpower for 3 more dice.  Her total is 23 Dice for this Spell.  
  3. Increase Factors:
    1. There are 3 Spell Factors you can tweak to determine what your spell ultimately does, Potency, Duration and Scale.  Increasing Potency makes the spell Stronger.  Duration makes it last Longer.  Scale Makes it affect more people or a Wider area. 
    2. Without increasing Factors all Spells Start with Potency 1, Duration 1 (1 Turn for Regular Duration, 1 Scene for Advanced Duration) and Scale 1 (1 Person for Regular Scale, 5 Persons for Advanced Scale)
    3. Each Step Increase in one of these Factors makes the spell more Powerful and costs 2 dice.  I.E. Moving Potency from 1 to 5, requires 4 Step increases for a total of 8 dice.  Increasing Duration by 3 Steps from 1 turn to 5 turns (4th Duration Factor Level) costs 6 dice, etc.
    4. Determine Free Steps in Primary Factor.  You get a Number of Free Steps in the Primary Factor of the spell equal to your Arcana minus 1.  Ana with Fate 4 gets 3 Free Step increases in the Primary Factor of whatever Fate Spell she is casting.
    5. Example: Ana is casting Superlative Luck above.  The Primary Factor for that is Duration so Ana with Fate 4 gets 3 Free Step Increases.  Since she also used a reach to Advance Duration she gets Duration increase from Level 1 to Level 4 for free or 1 Month Duration.  She Only Casts this on herself so no Factor Increases needed for Scale.  But she wants this spell to be Extra Potent, so she spends 16 of her 23 Dice for 8 Potency Level Increases. Her Spell now goes from Potency 1 to Potency 9.  She is left with only 7 Dice in her Spell Casting Roll (23 - 16)

That's IT!  Now roll your Left Over Dice to determine Success or Failure, and deal with Paradox if you incurred any.  

Also don't forget the Step by Step Spell Helper Link to help you do this in real time during a Scene without having to memorize all of the above.