MortalSorcery/Warding

Warding

Standard Test: Intelligence + Occult: A sorcerer can ward an area against entry by spirits of all kinds (spirits being a catch-all term for demons, elementals, ghosts and gods). This ward is not typically strong enough to protect against a determined attacker, but will suffice to prevent accidental or casual entry. To create a ward requires a simple ritual that takes approximately 20 minutes during which the sorcerer must walk the boundary of the area he wishes to protect, and the ward thus created will last until the next time the sun crosses the horizon. A spirit who wishes to enter the warded area must pass a Strength + Conviction test with a difficulty of 1.

The sorcerer can add extra properties to the ward by subtracting dice from the Occult test:

||Property || Cost || |[Reinforce ward (difficulty to breach +1) || 1 || |[Alarmed ward (will alert sorcerer to breach) || 1 || |[Active ward (resists breach with breaching difficulty in dice) || 2 || |[Physical ward (will hedge out small creatures) || 3 ||

If the sorcerer has set the ward to alert him to a breach then, should this occur the sorcerer will feel a sharp stabbing sensation in his head, the direction of the feeling matching that of the breach. Note that this only occurs when the ward has been fully breached by a spirit, merely attempting to break through will not alert the sorcerer.

An active ward can resist any breach by turning it into an opposed action, every success made on the resistance roll subtracts one from the spirit’s attempt to break through. If the ward is active and it comes up with more successes than the spirit did (after subtracting successes due to difficulty modifiers) then the spirit suffers dice of unsoakable bashing damage equal to the leftover successes.

A botch on a warding attempt has the opposite effect to that intended – it creates an area that is highly attractive to spirits, drawing them in from the immediate area. Any spirit wishing to resist this attractive force must spend a point of Willpower. This effect will last for a number of weeks equal to the number of 1’s rolled on the botch.

Questions

Um. I'm unclear on the use of the Active Ward. Since each die is typically +.5 difficulty (and costs 2 from the Occult roll), while simply reinforcingthe Ward is +1 difficulty (and costs only 1 from the Occult roll). Granted, dealing some damage to the offending Ghost is nice, but at that difficulty, very few will try it.

Additionally, expanding on Physical Ward- Material Ward (4) which hedges out large animals and humans wouldn't be out of place. :) DS

The Active Ward is a toggle switch, and operates in conjunction with the bought breaching difficulty. Either your ward fights back, or it doesn't (unless this is what you meant and I'm misunderstanding). Completing the ward only requires one success on the Occult roll and then you get the effects you paid for. So a sorcerer with Occult ••••• could use all of his Occult dice to create a ward that actively resists breaches with four dice, as well as subtracting three successes from the spirit's attempt to get through the ward in the first place. It probably wasn't clear from the text above. - Moxiane

Er. Maybe I'm slow, but I still don't get it. It seems like an occultist with Occult 5 could trade down his whole Occult pool to make the ward Difficulty 6 to cross, Difficulty 4 with 1 die of resistance, or Difficulty 2 with 2 dice of Resistance. He would then only have his Intelligence for setting up the Ward itself. Where's the Resistance of 4 and Difficulty of +2 coming from... DS

OK. The sorcerer I used above creates the ward as shown - he now has a difficulty 4 Active ward around the chosen area. Any spirit who attempts to breach it rolls its Strength + Conviction against the ward's defences, which comprise two parts - the difficulty of 4, and the extra four dice it gets because it's Active. So the spirit loses three success from the difficulty, and then the player gets to roll four dice. If there are more successes there than the spirit had left, it takes the excess as dice of unsoakable Bashing damage. The Active part doesn't buy dice, it's a switch. - Moxiane

OH! I gotcha! So the Resistance = Difficulty! All is made clear :) DS