MortalSorcery/Rotes

Rotes

The sorcery of the Exalt dwarfs that of mortals in power, even the meanest spells of the Terrestrial Circle can create effects that are far beyond the reach of the most powerful mortal shaman. However, what mortal sorcery lacks in power, it makes up in flexibility, since the spells of the Exalted are fixed – the sheer amounts of Essence involved in their use forces strong constraints on them, lest that power be unleashed without control.

This flexibility comes at a price for the mortal though, and there are many witches and spirit-talkers that learn their magic through strong traditions passed down through the generations, the inherent flexibility of mortal sorcery alien to them. Instead these sorcerers use what savants refer to as rotes – set ways of working magic that a sorcerer can fix into his mind, learning them so thoroughly that he can control the magical energies far more easily that would otherwise be possible.

In game mechanics terms, a mortal sorcerer can spend experience points to create a rote which will then halve (round down) the dice pool penalties of that particular magical effect. The experience point cost is equal to the base number of dice that the effect subtracts from the sorcerer’s Occult test. All of the normal limits of mortal sorcery apply to rotes, the sorcerer merely alleviates the penalties through much experience.

Example:Somagath the wizard decides that he needs a fast and powerful attack rote, in case of trouble. After much experimentation he settles on a powerful fireball spell. Somagath has Occult •••••, and so his player decides spend the five dice to add the elemental effect Flame (2 dice), and to increase the damage of the spell by 6 (3 dice) – he also decides that the rote will have a blast radius (halving the base damage). Somagath expends the five experience points necessary to form the rote, and he now has a spell that inflicts 9L damage to all within 5 yards of the target, as well as setting the unfortunates alight.

Questions

How do Rotes interact with fields like Healing, where there's no 'trade down the dice to gain additional effects' mojo at work? Can such areas simply not get Roted? DS

Some Paths just didn't feel like they were appropriate for rotes (the mortal sorcery equivalent of Combos). Healing was one, Enchantment and Summoning are the others. This is partly due to the length of time they require and partly because of the uncertainty in their use. On the upside, this means you're much less likely to botch when using those three Paths because your dice-pools will be that much larger. - Moxiane