[RPG] Do damaging magic Effects deal automatic or rolled damage

damagemage-the-ascensionmagicworld-of-darkness

Both Vampire and Mage mention the usage of damage dice pools which are calculated based on the attack's successes and are afterwards rolled vs. Diff. 6 in order to determine actual caused damage.

My issues came up while reading M20 in particular, the 20th anniversary edition of Mage, which only mentions them ~3 times in the whole rulebook. Do magical Effects with the purpose of inflicting damage work in the same way? Or is their damage "automatic" and only soaked by the target?

Best Answer

Your second option is correct.

As per Mage: the Ascension Revised (p.151) and Mage: 20th Anniversary (p.543), the successes one gets on a Magickal effect translate into a number of levels of damage, modified by the Spheres used. The Base Damage for most Spheres is two lethal per success on the roll. (Forces adds an extra level; Mind is bashing; Entropy can't damage at all until Level 4.) The magickal reference charts on p.209 and 504, respectively, also refer to levels of damage inflicted, and not to damage dice rolled.

A relevant cite:

You figure the damage or resultant effect of a spell by checking the Damage and Duration table. Though once it was possible to kill with a single strike, doing so is much more dif- ficult with modern magic. Generally, each success left over from the Effect causes two levels of damage, healing, point-transfer or whatever. Therefore, if your mage casts a damaging Effect and scores two successes (after thresholds and other subtractions), the Effect scores up to four levels of damage. This limit works the same way for damage, healing and channeling Quintessence. You can “pull” your Effect to be less powerful, but only if you specify the limit of your Effect before casting! (MtA Rev., 151)

On page 504 of Mage 20, the Base Damage/Duration Chart shows how much base damage a successful spell effect does. A "fireball" takes three successes because that's enough for (2X3+1) lethal, enough to kill someone. As detailed, a standard spell either has damage or duration; if you want both, or some other variant effect, you'll use the Optional Dividing Successes rule instead. (p.504)

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