[M:tA] Willpowering away botches

[JeenLeen]

My group is playing Mage: The Ascension, revised core book, and I have a question about a certain ruling.

When a mage gets a single botch on his Arete roll, he can spend a point of temporary Willpower to 'will away' the botch.

If you double or moreso botch (so instead of just -1 net successes, -2 or more), does the magic automatically go awry (giving Paradox) or can you still willpower it away? The DM is saying it cannot be willpowered away and says he is referring somewhere in the core book, but I cannot find his passage. He is requiring me to offer counter-examples from the book.

I realize our problem is one of terminology. I think 'botch' means any degree of botch, be it -1 or -10. He thinks 'botch' refers to a single '-1', so if I double-botched, I could willpower away one of the -1s, making it less severe (same Paradox, but maybe a Life botch just causes a flashing light instead of doing some damage to me). This is problematic since it means any passage I can find in the book about using willpower to avoid "a botch" is read by him as meaning one '-1'.

Can anyone tell me if I'm right or he is? Book citations are most helpful?


Note: I am away that the Mage book contradicts itself in some places. Any ruling in my favor could turn the tide. Also, I realize that as DM/ST he has the final say, but this is about if it is 'RAW' or not, insofar as that term means anything for WoD.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

I don't know much about mage, but what I got from vampire is this:
A roll is a botch if there is at least one roll of "1" and no role that would count as a success. The numbers of ones are irrelevant as long as there is at least one.

I'm also aware of using willpower for an automatic success, but that can only be done before the roll was made, so I'm not sure how the specific interaction your talking about works.

[Caliphbubba]

My group is playing Mage: The Ascension, revised core book, and I have a question about a certain ruling.

When a mage gets a single botch on his Arete roll, he can spend a point of temporary Willpower to 'will away' the botch.

If you double or moreso botch (so instead of just -1 net successes, -2 or more), does the magic automatically go awry (giving Paradox) or can you still willpower it away? The DM is saying it cannot be willpowered away and says he is referring somewhere in the core book, but I cannot find his passage. He is requiring me to offer counter-examples from the book.

I realize our problem is one of terminology. I think 'botch' means any degree of botch, be it -1 or -10. He thinks 'botch' refers to a single '-1', so if I double-botched, I could willpower away one of the -1s, making it less severe (same Paradox, but maybe a Life botch just causes a flashing light instead of doing some damage to me). This is problematic since it means any passage I can find in the book about using willpower to avoid "a botch" is read by him as meaning one '-1'.

Can anyone tell me if I'm right or he is? Book citations are most helpful?


Note: I am away that the Mage book contradicts itself in some places. Any ruling in my favor could turn the tide. Also, I realize that as DM/ST he has the final say, but this is about if it is 'RAW' or not, insofar as that term means anything for WoD.


I'm sorry I can't provide a specific citation, but if I remember correctly you can only ever spend one Willpower per roll. By extension you could only ever spend on will to 'will away' a botch. I'll look for the specific rule and edit it in if I find it.

as far as terminology goes I believe it is only a 'botch' if your net 1's out number your net successes. anyway thats the way it's been played in any oWoD game I've ever played. again I'll edit in specifics when I find them.

Good luck.

EDIT1: To clear up some of the terminology questions I offer you this

The Rule of One
There is one last thing about rolling dice, and that is the 'rule of one.' Whenever you roll a "one," it cancels out a success. It completely take it away. You remove both the "success" die and the "one" die and pay them no more heed. If you roll more "ones" than you do successes, a disaster occurs; something called a "botch" takes place. Don't count the "ones" that canceled out successes, but if even a single "one" is left after all the successes have been canceled a botch occurs. Getting a single "one" or five "ones" has about the same result in most cases; the circumstances surrounding the botch determine if it is catastrophic or a minor mishap. If they're aren't any "ones" of successes left, you've merely failed.

I could find nothing on 'willing away' a botch after the roll had already been made, and I'm inclined to believe your ST is being nice by letting you spend a willpower for an auto success that is then negated by a "one", so it a houserule either way.

[JeenLeen]

Thank you for the references.

My ST and I talked some more about it, and he said he found arguments for botches being both any number of negative successes as well as each individual -1, but he prefers the latter so that's how we are going to do it.

The willpowering away a botch is only on Arete rolls. I forget what section of the book it is in, but we both agree that that is in there. The idea being that since True Magick is an act of will, the mage can exert his will to undo a botch.

Again, thanks.

[1of3]

Note that the botch rules are more lenient in Revised. You only botch, when there were no successes in the first place.

[Jornophelanthas]

The term "botch" differs between 2nd and Revised editions of any oWoD system.

Under 2nd Edition, "botch" means "a roll containing more 1s than successes".
Under Revised Edition (and newer systems), "botch" means "a roll containing no successes, and one or more 1s".
In no edition does "botch" refer to individual dice that come up "1" as part of a larger roll.

You are playing Revised, so you should use the Revised definition.

---
As to using Willpower points in Mage Revised:

Before rolling a dice pool, a player has the option to spend a Willpower point. If the player does, he/she receives one free success, that is to be added to the outcome of the roll. This effectively prevents botching under Revised Edition botch rules. Only one Willpower point may be spent in this way per turn.

Under 2nd Edition, a player could spend a Willpower point to cancel the Paradox effect of a botched Arete roll (i.e. after the roll). However, this rule has been abolished under Revised Edition. (For two reasons: 1. It's harder to botch under Revised Edition's rules for botching; and 2. By spending Willpower before the roll, you can effectively prevent a botch.) If your Storyteller uses a rule like this in your (Revised Edition) game, it is a house rule.

In Mage: the Ascension games I have played (both 2nd Edition and Revised), there was a house rule that stated you cannot spend Willpower for an extra success on an Arete roll, because: 1. Magick should always be dangerous, and "buying off" this risk with Willpower kills this atmosphere; and 2. Because the maximum number of successes you can achieve depends on your Arete score, and because Arete is very difficult to raise, spending Willpower to increase your success range feels like cheating. Personally, I endorse this rule, and for that reason I also endorse the abolishing of spending Willpower to "buy off" Arete botches after they happen.

[tcrudisi]

... Everything that Jornophelanthas said ...

I was about to say what he said, but I was beat to the punch. He's 100% correct.