helping others adepts to help yourself
Nicknames : helpers, metas, batteries.
You never had any magic. You had heard rumours about the Occult Underground. You hoped there was more than meets the eye. More than anything, you wanted it to be true, wanted to have the kinds of power that were whispered about. Wanted more than what you had in your mundane life.
Then something happened. You bought a dipsomancer a drink, you were roped into a pornomancer’s ritual, dumped by an amoromancer, bought a bibliomancer a book for their birthday. You saw the rush in their eyes, felt the power of your act. You wanted that rush, that power.
Auxilomany is a school that uses the acts that other school’s use to power their own magic.
The paradox is that you are helping other adepts only to help yourself, being selflessly selfish.
Taboo: when your actions or inaction causes another adept to break taboo. Your magic comes from others, your taboo does too. Being in close proximity is usually enough to count for inaction. Meeting someone who is breaking taboo, such as a sober dipsomancer, does not break taboo. As always DM’s discretion applies.
Random Magic Domain: metamagic, you control other adepts magic by using your own. This always costs more than the original spell.
Charging:
An auxilomancer must keep track of what school of magic they have charges in.
Generate a Minor Charge: help another adept gain a minor charge.
Generate a Significant Charge: help another adept gain a Significant charge
Generate a Major Charge: be essential in helping another adept gain a major charge.
Charging tips: Auxilomancers don’t have a set style. Their magic is defined by the other adepts around them. They have to be constantly aware of other adepts, and keep them from taboo, while helping them with their obsessions.
Starting Charges:
4 minor charges all from different schools.
Formula Spells:
Minor:
Try Again! (1 minor charge of any type + cost of original spell in charges of any type) OR (cost of original spell in charges of the same type as original):
When an adept uses a charge directed an auxilomancer specifically (not as part of a group or area), he can use this as a reflex action to negate the spell.
Not Me, Him (2 minor charges of any type + cost of original spell in charges of any type) OR (cost of original spell in charges of the same type as original):
Works like Try Again, but instead of negating the spell, it is redirected at a target of the auxilomancer’s choice.
Have A Little Juice (4 minor charges of the same type)
Select an item or person who is not an adept, they now have 1 minor charge in that type which is discharged randomly in the next hour (DM decides how and when the spell activates).
I Helped Make These (2 minor charges of any type + cost of spell in charges of school type) OR (1 minor charge + cost of spell, all of the school type)
An auxilomancer may cast minor formula spells from any school he has enough charges in.
Here, Let Me Hold That For You (2 minor charges of any type) OR (1 charge in the school type)
Allows an auxilomancer to transfer any number of minor charges from an adept to himself. The transfer must be done willingly.
You Are Looking Tired (3 minor charges + twice cost, of any type) OR (1 minor charges + cost, all of the same type as the other adept)
Allows an auxilomancer to transfer minor charges to another adept.
Significant:
Not This Time (1 significant charge + twice cost of original spell, in any type) OR (1 significant charge + cost of original spell, all of the same type as original )
Like Try Again, negates a spell being cast, but does not have to be directed at the auxilomancer. Can be used on spells that have already been cast but have a duration.
I’ll Be Taking That! (2 significant charges + twice cost of original spell, in any type) OR ( 2 significant charge + cost of original spell, all of the same type as original)
Used like Not This Time, but redirects the spell instead of negating it.
More Time To Play (3 significant + twice cost of original, of any type) OR (1 significant + cost of original, all of the same type as original) :
When an adept casts a spell with duration, use this spell to double it. Multiple applications of this spell only increase it by the initial amount, but must also pay cost of any More Time To Play spells as well.
Let Me Try This (4 significant charges of any type + cost of spell in charges of school type) OR (2 significant charges + cost of spell, all of the school type)
Same as I Helped Make These, but allowing significant formula spells.
Gimme! (4 significant charges of any type) OR (2 significant charge in the school type)
Same as Here, Let Me Hold That For You but allowing significant charges.
You Need More Power (6 significant charges + twice cost, of any type) OR (2 significant charges + cost, all of the same type as the other adept)
Same as You Are Looking Tired but allowing significant charges.
Major:
Make a mundane into a adept of the same school as the initial charge.
Copy a major charge spell from the school the initial charge is in.
Interesting, although you should be clearer on how the adept should keep track of the source of their charges, like a Iconomancer.
Seems kind of weak, flavor wise, and you could definitely make an argument that the school violates the basic law of using mojo to get mojo. It’s not a clear cut case of course, DM’s discretion there, but the argument isn’t baseless.
Interesting, although you should be clearer on how the adept should keep track of the source of their charges, like a Iconomancer.
Seems kind of weak, flavor wise, and you could definitely make an argument that the school violates the basic law of using mojo to get mojo. It’s not a clear cut case of course, DM’s discretion there, but the argument isn’t baseless.
I didn’t think it would violate the law of using magic to get magic because it is concerned with being part of another adept’s ritual. It was ment to be a metamagic school, so stuff to negate, change or enhance other adepts.
It can gain a lot of charges quite rapidly, more so than most other schools, but is pretty much useless without the other adepts around anyway.
As for keeping track of charges, I’d imagine a separate sheet. eg, amoromancy – 2 minor, 1 sig, dipsomancy – 6 minor, 3 sig ect. Excel or another tabling program would be ideal.
I’m dubious about this. The “base cost +n” spell-pricing scheme should prevent it from being overpowered, and yet it still feels too good.
It’s not that it’s more powerful than other schools, but that it’s too useful when viewed from a metagame standpoint. If that makes any sense at all. What I mean is that every adept has a limited sphere of influence — like a fleshcrafter is limited to altering bodies. This adept is limited to collaborating with other adepts, which is a very harsh restriction, unless you’re a Player Character. If you’re a PC at Global level or higher, working with other adepts is probably what you’re doing for 99% of your playing time.
So what worries me is that this guy might be over-powered, not because his magick is too strong (if anything, it’s a little weak) but because his abilities are so optimized for being part of a PC adventuring cabal.
I can’t help but think that even with NPCs, this could get horribly powerful. If a battery buys a bar and gives free drinks in exchange for being given a percentage of the charges at the end of the night, then he can obtain more charges in a month than the average Dipsomancer can obtain in a lifetime. The only way to avoid that happening is to subject Auxilomancers to the taboos of the schools that they have charges in, but that cripples them, and removes the battery aspect. I’m not sure that there’s a way to balance it.
Eventually, the adepts get wise to a battery, and you get things like broke dipsomancers calling them and going, “im at this bar, im broke, help me” and he has to go! To the bar idea, if a dipsomancer ever sobered up in there, the auxilomancer would lose all his charges. The DM and other players can use a battery as a huge exploit.
So the bar owner/Auxilomancer has to take a few precautions, like making sure his office is soundproof and being careful about giving out his, and the bar’s, information. The point still stands. That said, I do see how a DM who is vigilant, creative, or possibly just mean-spirited can keep this from getting out of hand.
As a safeguard though, maybe there could be a limit on the amount of charges a Battery can get off of an individual adept per unit of time? It doesn’t make sense within the context of the school, but at least it would prevent PC abuse.
Workable, potentially, but really off the mark in its current form.
I like these guys as occult hangers-on – they’re not so much a conduit of magickal power as they are a storage vessel. I’d make it so that you only get minor charges of your own by helping somebody else create a sig. Also, spells like “I helped make these” are right out – their magic is about enabling, not about doing.
Generally, I’d play up the desperation and sense of inferiority. I mean, these guys are obsessed with bringing magick into the world, but they can only do that by helping the real Chosen Ones. They’re occult cheerleaders who don’t know how to play the game.
…Okay, so where I said “I’d do this,” before? I did it.
Thanks for the inspiration!